The Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood is still recuperating from a shoulder issue, according to Mo Bobat, Director of Cricket for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). According to Bobat, the bowler is continuing to improve his fitness while receiving rehabilitation in Australia.
On May 17, the Rajat Patidar-led RCB will play the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in Bengaluru’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. The cross-border tensions between India and Pakistan caused a one-week temporary halt to the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) season.
Additionally, it’s clear that Josh Hazlewood has been dealing with a shoulder ache for a few weeks.
In order to recover from that shoulder ache, he is remaining in Australia and focussing on his rehabilitation. In the RCB Bold Diaries episode, Bobat stated, “We’re going to have to take that day-by-day as we don’t currently have any updates.”
The Director of Cricket for the RCB acknowledged that it was very difficult to arrange security at such short notice. He underlined that the administration moved quickly to inform the players of the updated timetable. In order to minimise any inconvenience, he also asked that the decision be made quickly to notify the Indian players of their reporting time to the camp.
We didn’t have much time to try to understand the schedule and what we needed to do to prepare for our first game when we received it. We spent the night trying to learn as much as we could about security because we had to let the players know. We decided to let the Indian players know when we wanted them back extremely quickly,” Bobat admitted.
Bobat said it took a lot of planning and communication to coordinate with other cricket boards. He disclosed that in order to discuss logistical preparations and make sure the players felt safe and at ease throughout this time, he and head coach Andy Flower were on video conversations all the time.
Additionally, we had to communicate with some of the international governing bodies, such as Cricket Australia, the ECB, and, more recently, Cricket South Africa and the West Indies. Because now that the dating is over, you need to know how it will affect them. Thus, a great deal of communication was required. Andy and I scheduled video conferences with all of the guys who were playing abroad. We talked to each of them, explained the security detail, went over the timetable, and explained how RCB will take care of them. It’s crucial that they understand this because we want them to feel secure and content here,” he continued.
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