Josh Hazlewood’s fifer fuels him into the 400-international wickets club

It wasn’t exactly a day to remember for Australia in the ongoing Ashes as the early dominion that came on the back of consecutive victories in the first two Tests is on a receding path after England managed to pull one back in the third game, currently in the driver’s seat in the fourth Test at Manchester.

Amidst all the woes, the solitary silver lining for Australia on a day that was more or less dictated by the hosts was the illustrious bowling of Josh Hazlewood. Despite the Bendemeer Bullet being taken out for a few runs, yet, his wicket-taking knack kept Australia in the hunt even though that now seems slender after their batters could do very little to provide hope.

The lanky fast bowling ace registered his 400th international wicket, 235th of which came in Tests to go with 108 ODI and 58 T20I scalps. Mark Wood was Hazlewood’s 400th international scalp while the other four were claimed in equally brilliant fashion.

The first wicket for Hazlewood was the big one of Joe Root as the ball surprisingly kept low, giving the Englishman barely any time to react before the ball thud into the stumps. Up next in the line of victims was the dangerous Harry Brook who stepped away from the stumps to give himself some room but ended up holing out to Mitchell Starc at deep backward square leg.

Hoff continued with his fine run and this time it was time for Chris Woakes to depart as he feathered one to Alex Carey, barely able to decide whether he would let the ball pass with the cherry hanging out menacingly close to the off-stump.

Hazlewood eventually got his 400th international wicket as his fuller delivery to Mark Wood did the trick with the latter barely able to shuffle across and the line was too incisive for the latter to protect his timbre. He eventually got his fifth as Stuart Broad’s ambitious pull backfired, the Englishman skying the ball to manifest into a caught and bowled to bring up Hazlewood's fifth wicket. 

In the only positive story to come out from Australia's bowling effort, Hazlewood finished with decent figures of 27-2-126-5.