Peter Siddle was left out of Australia's playing 11 in favour of Josh Hazlewood for the first Test against New Zealand, set to begin on Thursday (November 5) at the Gabba in Brisbane. Siddle, who impressed with figures of 2-32 and 4-35 in Australia's innings victory in the dead rubber Ashes Test at the Oval, was named the12th man with the 24-year-old Hazlewood joining Mitchell Johnson and Mitchell Starc in a three-prong pace attack.
Siddle's floundering Test career received a fresh lease of life when he replaced a weary Hazlewood for the final Ashes Test after being ignored for each of theprecedingfour games. His inclusion, and subsequent success, led to much debate in Australia's cricketing circles with the 30-year-old Victorian widely tipped to retain his place at the start of the Australian summer. But on the eve of the first Test, new Test skipper Steven Smith put his weight behind the younger Hazlewood, who had sparkled at the very venue last year with a fifer on debut against India.
Hazlewood, who was rested following the Ashes for the subsequent limited-overs series and the cancelled tour of Bangladesh, admitted to have been burnt out at the end of a gruelling first season in international cricket. "It was obviously my longest run in a row in first-class cricket, let alone Test cricket and I think physically it probably got the better of me toward the back end of the (Ashes) series and my bowling probably showed that," he told Cricket Australia earlier this week."
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