Josh Hazlewood is hoping to play more Test matches with Scott Boland rather than be pitted against him for a spot in Australia's XI as he hopes to make his long-awaited Test return, against Bangladesh in Darwin next month.
Hazlewood, 35, has not played a Test match since July 2025 after he missed the entire Ashes series due to hamstring and calf injuries. Hazlewood, Boland, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc all played together in Hazlewood's last Test when conditions allowed Australia's selectors to go without a spinner for a day-night Test in Jamaica.
But when all four have been available, and a spinner has been selected, Hazlewood and Boland have only played once together, at Edgbaston in 2023 when Starc was omitted.
Nathan Lyon's return from injury and the necessity for a spinner in Darwin will almost certainly mean that one of Hazlewood or Boland misses out on the XI for the first Test against Bangladesh starting on August 13. But Hazlewood is confident he will play with Boland over the next 12 months given Australia has 20, possibly, 21 Tests to navigate with an aging group of bowlers.
"I'd love to play more with Scotty," Hazlewood said during a training camp in Brisbane on Thursday. "We're obviously a little bit similar, but I think there's still a lot of differences in our bowling. Every time he's come in, he's done unbelievably well. His career just keeps getting better and better the older he gets.
"I think there's enough opportunities in the next 12 months, 18 months for us to play a lot of cricket hopefully together, that'd be a nice one to tick off. But I think as four quicks, we've got Ness [Michael Neser] and Doggy [Brendan Doggett] there as well. So I think we'll have to lean on all six at some point in the next sort of 18 months."
Hazlewood is arguably the most vulnerable of the six fast bowlers leading into their unprecedented run of Tests. He has suffered significant injuries in the first Test or first-class game he has played in four of the last five home summers and has played just six of Australia's last 14 Tests, including suffering an injury halfway through two of them.
He remains a pivotal part of Australia's plans and is just five wickets away from 300 Test scalps, with an average of just 24.21. Chair of selectors George Bailey revealed last week that Hazlewood and Australia's coaching and medical staff had tinkered with his preparation over recent months, after resting him from two white-ball tours of Pakistan and Bangladesh following the IPL, to try and mitigate against further injury.
"I think this is probably the first time we've actually had a lead in to a Test without any cricket in terms of games," Hazlewood said.
"It's been big days, Tuesdays, Thursdays mostly, with some other stuff filtered in around that, and then last week we had a few back-to-back days, Tuesday, Wednesday, and again next week I think back-to-back.
"Leading into other Test series and Test matches, you're playing T20, you're playing one-dayers, you're travelling, so it's tough to fit those bowling sessions in. This has been sort of tailor-made for a Test match, which is I think should work out well.
"It's just trying to replicate a day in the field of Test cricket. Really, it's bowling multiple spells in a day. It's bowling back-to-back days."
The nature of Hazlewood's recent injury history means he does not want to look further ahead than the first Test against Bangladesh.
"I think every time you look ahead in sport it can bite you pretty quickly," Hazlewood said. "I've always done that. I've looked at it like that literally day in day out for the last few weeks here, ticking boxes, getting workloads in. Next week's another tick, and then I guess once you get through all that, then you look at Darwin. So everything else is a long way away. Just take it as it comes."
But despite just trying to focus on putting one foot in front of the other, Hazlewood did admit that his team-mates were conscious of the opportunity that is on offer for them over the next 12 months, with the chance for rare away Test series wins against South Africa, India and England all in the space of 12 months.
"This group's been together for quite a long time now, the majority of it, anyway," Hazlewood said. "The big series are obviously England and India. I haven't won in South Africa either, so there's three that are coming up that are a few boxes to tick off there for not just me but from this whole playing group.
"I guess that's been a driving factor during this prep, sort of in the back of your head, and even the months leading into it. Some real big Test series, and they're all away, obviously those big ones. Tough competition, and hopefully we get the job done."