Josh Hazlewood sets sights on South Africa Tests after successful return

SYDNEY: Experienced Australia pacer Josh Hazlewood on Monday expressed his determination to maintain the "intensity" from his successful return at home against Bangladesh ahead of the three-match away Test series against South Africa in October.

Hazlewood made his long-awaited return to Australia's Test fold after a year-long layoff during their recently concluded two-match home series against Bangladesh.

The 35-year-old pacer picked up seven wickets, including a six-for in the first innings, in the series opener against Bangladesh in Darwin, which the visitors won convincingly by nine wickets.

Although Hazlewood managed to claim just one wicket in the subsequent Test in Mackay, the hosts prevailed in the must-win fixture to level the series.

Following his successful Test return, Hazlewood, who last played an ODI in October last year, may as well make his longer-format comeback when Australia tour South Africa and Zimbabwe for three-match series each.

But the right-arm pacer, while addressing the media at the launch of Play Cricket Week here, insisted that the "best way forward" for him was to play as much as possible, adding that the ODI assignments will help him maintain the intensity for the series against ICC World Test Championship (WTC) holders South Africa.

"I think still the best way forward for me is to play as much as I can [within] reason," Hazlewood told reporters.

"We've got two ODI series before that Test match series, so it might be playing two out of three in both of those. I think once you're at that intensity, which we're all at now, [it] is trying to maintain that as best we can," he added.

Hazlewood, set to turn 36 in January next year, shared that he was "very pleased" with his physical status, adding that he trained for around 10 weeks for the Bangladesh series.

"I'm very pleased with where I'm at physically, [I've] done a lot of work, probably the 10 weeks leading into that series, it was probably our last big training block before what's to come. Very pleased to come out the other side pretty much unscathed."