Josh Hazlewood is among the top wicket-takers this season — how his performances are fueling RCB’s strong run in IPL 2025.
For a change, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) are not at the bottom of an Indian Premier League (IPL) season. They are not catching up with various permutations and combinations to make it to the play-offs. This season, they have been consistently in the top four, with a 100 per cent win record in away games – winning four out of four.
They also broke the losing jinx at home, winning their first game in four matches at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium this season. Their lone win at home came against Rajasthan Royals a few days ago. The difference this season is the leader of their bowling attack – Aussie pacer Josh Hazlewood, who is currently the joint highest wicket-taker with 16 wickets this season.
Hazlewood has always been among wickets
Before this IPL season, Hazlewood has featured in four campaigns – two with RCB and two with Chennai Super Kings. His breakthrough season came in the 2022 season when he took 20 wickets as RCB bowed out in Qualifier 2.
In the next season with RCB, he played just three matches for three wickets before injury ruled him out of the tournament. He opted out of the next season in 2024. Overall, he has taken 51 wickets in 36 IPL matches. Hence, it could be argued that Hazlewood knows the way to succeed in a tough league such as IPL.
Read More: IPL 2025, RCB vs RR, Highlights: Rajasthan fall short again; Bengaluru climb to third spot
A season of additional responsibility
But this season, he has been without his new-ball partner in Mohammed Siraj or handy pacer Harshal Patel as RCB preferred to go with a new bowling attack. Hence, he had an experienced IPL campaigner in Bhuvneshwar Kumar for company, with a left-arm seamer in Yash Dayal in the mix as well. The spinning options too underwent a change with Krunal Pandya and Suyash Sharma holding the spin fort. With a relatively new bowling attack, the onus fell on Hazlewood to spearhead the unit, and he has done the job extremely well so far.
With the responsibility of leading the attack, Josh Hazlewood has responded to the task with great ease. Whether it has been the powerplay, middle or death overs, Hazlewood has been the go-to man for his captain Rajat Patidar. And the Aussie bowler has delivered almost every time he has been called out to bowl. For the record, he has taken six wickets in powerplay, four wickets in middle-overs and six wickets in the death overs. Hence, he has not been a one-trick player, using his variations extremely well to suit all stages of a T20 game.
How has Hazlewood worked out his strategies?
In powerplay, Hazlewood has mixed it up, bowling good length, hard length, short, full-length and slower ones to derive mistakes from the batters. Whenever RCB have struggled to pick up a wicket in the middle-overs, Patidar has thrown the ball to Hazlewood who had responded by breaking a stand or two.
However, Hazlewood has best stood out in the death overs when his yorkers and full-length balls have made it difficult for batters to go underneath it and smack it. Overall, he has been a complete bowler who could bowl at various stages of the game to bring the team back into the contention for a win.
Read More: RCB off to a great start in IPL 2025; What makes them a balanced unit?
Hazlewood – the all conditions bowler
Besides, Hazlewood has been a success on all grounds. He has taken eight wickets at home, and eight wickets away. In the slow Chennai wicket, he took three wickets, while two wickets in a bowler’s hell in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. In the unpredictable M Chinnaswamy wicket, he has eight wickets to show for his efforts. Overall, Hazlewood has not let conditions dictate him, instead he has overpowered the conditions to produce the results.
Josh Hazlewood showing his experience with touch of class.
— Irfan Pathan (@IrfanPathan) April 24, 2025
Death overs superiority
A look at his performances, especially in the death overs, show Hazlewood has been near difficult to score off. For example, in the clash against Rajasthan Royals recently, the opposition were running away with the match, with Bhuvi leaking 22 runs in the 18th over. But Hazlewood, bowling the important 19th over, conceded just one run for two wickets to single-handedly win the match for the team. In an earlier clash against Mumbai at Wankhede, Hardik Pandya and Tilak Verma were running away with the game. Bowling the 19th over, Hazlewood dismissed the dangerous Pandya to turn the momentum in RCB’s favour. The wicket triggered a mini-collapse as RCB won the match by 12 runs.
What is working so well for Hazlewood?
Josh Hazlewood is in the form of his life currently and it is showing in his performance in the current IPL season. He has been bowling as good as he has ever done before. Just like how batters go into zone, bowlers too find a rhythm that continues to reap rewards. Hence, Hazlewood is in such a rhythm that when he has a ball in hand, he looks as good to take a wicket every time. Hence, he is in a good mental space where his efforts are showing up in the wickets’ column and helping RCB to defend a target or getting the opposition restricted to a manageable target.
Clutch mode: ACTIVATED ✅#RCB needed magic and Josh Hazlewood pulled off one with an excellent match-winning performance 👏#TATAIPL | #RCBvRR | @RCBTweets pic.twitter.com/cZQDXmBr46
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 25, 2025
His performance has rubbed off on teammates
It’s rightly said that when a player performs, he inspires other players to match up and excel. Hazlewood’s performance is doing that currently. Bhuvi and Dayal are excelling in their roles as support bowlers to Hazlewood. Even if Bhuvi has gone for runs, Hazlewood has pulled things back with his accuracy and good line and length bowling and saved the day for RCB. In the clash against Rajasthan, Hazlewood’s performance inspired Dayal to finish off the match with 11 runs in the bank. Hence, there are very few performers such as Hazlewood who inspire their teammates to play above their potential and excel in the match.
His humbleness & no-nonsense approach
Compared to other Aussie stars such as Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc, Hazlewood is a picture of humbleness where he has become a whole with RCB, and does not stick out as a foreign recruit. The camaraderie is there to see when Virat Kohli lifted Hazlewood off his ground after the win against Rajasthan.
Hence, Hazlewood is as good a RCBian as Kohli now, and the Aussie star’s performance is pushing the bowling attack to punch above their waist. It’s RCB finally who are breathing a bit lightly this season as another win or two could confirm a play-off berth. This time, hopefully, there will be no calculator out to predict RCB’s play-off chances just like in previous seasons. A lot of the credit goes to Aussie star Hazlewood.
Read More: IPL 2025, PBKS vs RCB, Highlights: Paddikal-Kohli lead RCB to victory, Punjab slip to 4th Spot
