RCB on Australia? Mitchell Johnson accused Hazelwood of giving priority to IPL in WTC final

Leeds 2019, Sydney 2021 and Gabba 2021. These are four occasions when Australia had to defend targets of over 300. Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, and Nathon Lyon all played together in these matches. Yet, they weren’t able to win either. That is despite them being considered one of the greatest quartets in Test cricket history.

In the World Test Championship Final (WTC) Final 2025 against South Africa, they were unable to defend 282. And it wasn’t a nail-biter of a match. The Proteas won by 5 wickets and with 5 sessions to spare. Yes, the pitch at Lord’s had flattened out but one expects a better show from an attack like that.

Hazlewood questioned for RCB stint

People are coming hard at the Aussies for losing to a South African team that had won just one match against five nations in the entire WTC 2023-2025 cycle. And former Australian fast bowler, Mitchell Johnson, has even gone as far as to question Hazlewood’s fealty towards Australia.

Johnson raised the point that Hazlewood has had issues with injury. And that happened when he played for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). He returned home and didn’t play for more than a month. But came back to India to play the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 Final against Punjab Kings.

Given how he’s had fitness issues for the last few years, Johnson thinks that by returning to IPL 2025, Hazlewood didn’t prioritise preparing for the WTC Final 2025. As per RCB mentor and batting coach Dinesh Karthik, Hazlewood had been bowling with the red ball in the nets during the IPL and even upped his bowling output. But as is often the case, when things don’t go right, people raise their fingers at you.

“Our successful ‘big four’ bowling attack of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins, and Nathan Lyon can’t be taken for granted as a lock going forward either. We’ve seen concerns about Hazlewood’s fitness in recent years, and his decision to prioritise returning to the delayed Indian Premier League over his national team preparations raised eyebrows. Lyon didn’t look his best on day three either,” Johnson wrote in his column for The West Australian.