NEW DELHI: Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) will have to wait for Josh Hazlewood to join the squad for IPL 2026, with the fast bowler set to return only after clearance from Cricket Australia.RCB director of cricket Mo Bobat said on Tuesday that the franchise is working closely with Cricket Australia and medical staff as Hazlewood continues his recovery in Australia.
The pacer, who played a key role in RCB’s IPL 2025 title win, has not featured in a match since suffering a hamstring injury during the Sheffield Shield in November. He also missed the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 as he had not fully recovered.The 35-year-old is currently undergoing a return-to-play programme and is expected to miss the initial matches of the season. His return date has not been finalised.“As most people would know, Josh has missed quite a bit of cricket recently with injuries, so he’s currently working through a return-to-play programme. He’s doing that in Australia currently. We are liaising with both Josh and Cricket Australia, and our medical teams are collaborating very strongly on a day-to-day basis on his programme,” Bobat told the media during a press conference on Tuesday, as cited by news agency IANS.“We’ll continue to communicate with them, and as soon as he gets to a point where Cricket Australia are happy, he’ll come over, and we hope to have him with us very soon,” he added.Despite Hazlewood’s absence and Yash Dayal being ruled out of the season for personal reasons, Bobat said the team has enough bowling options.“We have some excellent domestic fast bowlers in our squad. Rasik, who you know many of you will know, Abhinandan, who we had with us last year, and then we also signed Mangesh in this auction, so domestically we have three excellent potential options there that could replace him.”The defending champions also announced that all the players of the franchise will wear the jersey number 11 in the pre-match training on all the match days in the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL).RCB will begin their IPL campaign on March 28 against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
