Josh Hazlewood confident of turnaround despite Australia’s struggles against Bangladesh

Josh Hazlewood backed Australia’s chances of a comeback despite Bangladesh dominating the Darwin Test. The hosts trail by 67 runs after Day 3, while Bangladesh all-rounder Mehidy Hasan Miraz believes restricting Australia’s lead will help secure a historic victory

New Delhi: Australian fast-bowler Josh Hazlewood exuded confidence, saying Australia can still go on to win the first Test against Bangladesh despite the Asian side bossing things in Darwin on Saturday.

Hazlewood stated that if the team can bat deep on Day 4, they can have the opportunity to take 10 wickets and still win the Test match, which looks far from their grasp as of now.

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Bangladesh ended the third day still on top of the hosts, who were 161/4 with a trail of 67 still upon them. All-rounder Cameron Green (43) and wicketkeeper batter Alex Carey (19) are in the middle with Beau Webster and Pat Cummins waiting in the wings.

“Once we tick those [runs] off, hopefully we’re still four down, and you can start to build the pressure,” Hazlewood said after the end of Day 3, as quoted by Cricinfo.

He added that the wicket is still showing signs of variable bounce and hoped to take the 10 wickets if the wicket remains up and down.

“I’m not sure how the wicket will play. Obviously we haven’t played much in Test cricket [here]. It was showing a little bit of signs of up and down. If we can bat deep into tomorrow and potentially even the whole day, maybe there are always opportunities to take 10 wickets on the final day if the wicket is a little bit up and down. So [the] win is still definitely in our mind, and always is pretty much. So we’ll look to do whatever we can to move towards that.”

For Australia to scrape through with a win, they would need to overturn their biggest ever trail in a home Test. They were trailing by 228 runs after the visitors made 426 in reply to Australia’s 198. The previous biggest deficit they overcame for a win at home was 206 against Pakistan in 2010 at the SCG. The biggest deficit that they overcame for a win anywhere is the 291-run trail against Sri Lanka in 1992, a Test which they won by 16 runs.

Green holds the key for Australia as he looks to post a strong score to shrug off recent question marks over his position. He could well have been dismissed on 12 if not for an inside edge grazing his leg stump without breaking it.

“You definitely need luck in cricket, that’s for sure,” Hazlewood said on Green’s lucky survival. “I think his intent has been good. He’s looked to score from the outset. I thought even in the first innings, it was probably just summing up the situation more so in that time, just before whatever break it was.

“I think he’s shown good intent from ball one in both innings. [He] looked to score, put the pressure back on the bowler. Yeah, a little bit of luck goes a long way sometimes. So you never know.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh all-rounder Mehidy Hasan Miraz was confident that the visitors could keep the target low and register a famous win Down Under. “We are playing on a good wicket, so all we want to do is bowl in the right areas,” he said. “We have to work hard for each wicket. We had to do a lot to get those four wickets today. We are trying to give away as few runs as possible. If we can take at least three or four wickets within these [67] runs, then we won’t have a difficult target coming up.

“We want to give them as few runs as possible. They have a lot of good batters remaining, so getting at least three more wickets is our priority. I don’t want to predict the future, but we must own the first session on day four.”