Josh Hazlewood is confident that he will get enough matches and time to be match ready before Australia begin its World Cup defense in England and Wales.

The strike bowler is currently recovering from a stress fracture in his back which ruled him out of Australia’s upcoming limited-overs tour of India later this month and Pakistan series as well and regain fitness before World Cup 2019. 

However, Hazlewood is confident he will have plenty of time to recover from the injury before the upcoming 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup to be played from 30 May in England.

The 28-year-old, who has 72 wickets in 44 ODIs to his name so far, has also revealed that he would be having another scan on the damaged back, which has kept him sidelined since mid-January in Sydney.

Hazlewood told reporters on Thursday, “I think, working back (for) the World Cup mostly. That’ll give me plenty of time to get fit for the World Cup and the Ashes. There’s quite a long build-up ... there’s still quite a lot of cricket I can get to before the World Cup actually starts.”

The paceman continued, "I think we'll know a lot more after tomorrow, to be honest. Hopefully, in the coming weeks, we'll start working through it. Hopefully, it's going along to plan. Everything feels fine so training's coming along nicely, progressing every week confident to regain fitness before 2019 World Cup, says he may start bowling again in a couple of weeks."

He signed off by saying, “It’s already been six weeks and, as I say, we’ll know more tomorrow, but everything’s feeling pretty good. We’ll probably start walk-through bowling in the next couple of weeks if all goes well.”

(With AFP Inputs)