WTC Final: 'Virat's work ethic makes him the player that he is,' says Josh Hazlewood

Pacer Josh Hazlewood who is a part of the Australia Playing XI for World Test Championship final against India at The Oval starting June 7 has showered praise on star India batter and his Royal Challengers Bangalore teammate Virat KohliHazlewood had to cut short his IPL stint due to a side issue However he maintained that he is not far from bowling at full strength as Australia gear up for the big finalTalking about Kohli whose wicket he will be targeting at The Oval Hazlewood expressed admiration for the Indian superstars work ethic that makes him the player he isI think its probably how hard he works that stands out His fitness first of all and then his skill work and batting and fielding in particularrdquo Hazlewood told the ICCHe is always out there training first and leaves last and the intensity he trains at all the time is at such a high level it drags everyone else along for the ride That can leak on to the other players and improve them as wellhe addedTalking about RCBs leading wicket taker Mohammed Siraj who is expected to play a big part in the WTC final Hazlewood said I was a bit late getting there to RCB this year but before then he was on firerdquoHe is up there at the top of the wickets every time and the economy rate was probably the thing as bowling at Chinnaswamy RCBs home ground is impossible sometimes and he was going at six or sixandahalf an over His control was great and he is bowling wellrdquo he addedClose to bowling full paceThe Australian cricket team has been training in Formby in England ahead of the WTC final Hazlewood trained with the team on Monday and said he is feeling good going into the big gameMy fitness is pretty good and it is just a matter of ticking off every session from here until that date June 7 basically We will probably have anywhere from three to four more sessions bat versus ball and then a couple of longer days in the nets as well or centre wicket down in London so it is just ticking off those last few boxes and pulling up well from every session he saidIt was pretty close to full pace today I came down for a little bowl yesterday just to loosen up and to get a bit more out of todays session so it is feeling good It is always good to get the first one out of the way and when we get to London we will steam in he addedHazlewood could feature in only three games in the IPL before his injury flared upIn T20 you are bowling a lot of various different balls every over A wide yorker to a bouncer to a slower ball and it probably got jammed up a little bit and a bit of scar tissue from previous injuries flared uprdquo he said about his injuryIt calmed down pretty quickly I had a week off but I didnt quite get back to going 100 percent at IPL But the last few bowls have been good and I have been building up nicely he addedHaving played as many as 15 Tests against India Hazlewood is looking forward to the challenge of playing the Asian giants at a neutral venueIt is a strange stat that as I think I have just played a lot of cricket against them What is going to be interesting is playing them here in England It is going to be interesting for both teams how they go about it and how different it is to playing them in Australia or in India as typically you only play them there he saidThat is the exciting thing about it and everyone is looking forward to next week he addedWith PTI inputsAlso Read WTC Final Biggest challenge for Team India will be to adapt to the longer format says Gavaskar