Smith, Australia breathe a sigh of relief after Hazlewood cleared of injury on a day of drama

Josh Hazlewood is expected to train as planned in the nine days leading up to the Ashes opener in Perth after an injury scare at the SCG that put stand-in Test skipper Steve Smith and Cricket Australia medical staff on high alert.

Scans at lunch in NSW’s heavy 300-run loss to Victoria cleared Hazlewood of serious injury after he reported “hamstring tightness” to Blues skipper Smith on a dramatic Wednesday morning.

Hazlewood and reserve Test paceman Sean Abbott completed spells of five and four overs respectively before both left the field for hamstring scans. Abbott was subsequently ruled out of Australia’s 15-man Test squad, which will assemble in Perth on Sunday ahead of the series opener on November 21.

A Cricket Australia statement confirmed Hazlewood had been “cleared of a muscle strain” and that he will train as planned in the lead-up to the first Test in Perth.

With skipper Pat Cummins already sidelined for at least the first Test due to a back injury, the hosts can ill-afford to lose Hazlewood as well after the 34-year-old missed three Tests last summer due to side strain issues.

Smith immediately switched into Australian captaincy mode when Hazlewood left the field shortly before lunch on day three, worrying over teammate Mitchell Starc and Victorian counterpart Scott Boland all at once.

“[Hazlewood] literally bowled his last ball and I looked at him, I said, ‘How are you going?’,” Smith said.

“He said [he was] ‘a bit tight in my hamstring’. And I was like, ‘Get off the field, disappear, you’re done, go and figure it out’.

“[Then] what do we do with Starc? Do we just put him on ice completely?

“And I was like, ‘Boland, you can bowl one spell and be done as well, that’ll be good’.

“Fortunately, it was just some tightness and [Hazlewood] is good. But it’s rough for Sean, who’s obviously worked really hard the last few years to get in the position in the squad again.”

South Australian seamer Brendan Doggett will remain on standby for Hazlewood once the Test squad assembles in Perth, while CA is yet to announce a replacement for Abbott, who had taken three wickets in six balls on Wednesday before succumbing to injury.

Queensland veteran Michael Neser looms as one option, while emerging Victorian Fergus O’Neill was endorsed by his coach and former Test opener Chris Rogers after three wickets against NSW, taking his Sheffield Shield tally this season to 15 scalps at an average of 21.8.

Smith said he hadn’t had time to consider whether Hazlewood’s fitness could also have implications for Cameron Green’s Test bowling loads and the prospect of fitting both he and Beau Webster into the same side.

“But we’ve got it there, don’t we?” he said.

“We’ve got Greeny, who bowled well from what I’ve heard in their game. And Slug [Webster], who took five as well. So nice to have the options there if we feel we need to go down that path at all.”

Green impressed with the ball for Western Australia on Tuesday, taking a wicket in a tidy eight overs, having only sent down four overs this summer before taking on Queensland this week.

Webster is expected to make way as the all-rounder, but knocked over South Australia Test stars Travis Head (15) and Alex Carey (23) on Wednesday as South Australia pinched a tense three-wicket win.

Webster and potential Test opener Jake Weatherald both missed out with the bat for Tasmania, but Webster finished with an impressive match haul of eight wickets after claiming 5-50 in the first innings.

At roughly the same time that Webster was dismissing his Test teammates at Bellerive Oval, Cummins was arriving at the SCG to meet with NSW medical staff, only to find they had their hands full with Hazlewood and Abbott.

Cummins is still targeting an aggressive return in time for the second Test on December 4 after upping his training loads again in the SCG nets on Tuesday.

“We pushed it up a little bit yesterday; I bowled close to 90 per cent, so as good as you could hope,” he said.

“And [I] pulled up really well today, which is probably even more important than how I’m actually feeling bowling. So [it’s] all on track.

“Hopefully by Perth I’m up there near 100 per cent, and then kind of see where we’re at. It’s still pretty aggressive, going from nothing to trying to get ready for a Test match in four weeks. But we’re going to give it a good shot.”