Josh Hazlewood, an Australian pace bowler, led the team for the first time on Sunday at the Sydney Cricket Ground, and he described the experience as "pretty exciting" and "nerve-wracking." Australia defeated England in the ODI series.
In the absence of regular ODI skipper Pat Cummins, the 31-year-old quick made his captaincy debut as Australia defeated the recently crowned T20 World champions England by 72 runs to take a commanding 2-0 series lead.
After setting a competitive 280/8 in the allotted 50 overs, Australia dismissed England for just 208 in 38.5 overs to ensure a big win against Jos Buttler's side.
With precious little captaincy experience, Hazlewood admitted he was nervous before the seond ODI. Hazlewood has become Australia's 28th men's ODI captain after he was handed the reins with "Cummins' workload being managed ahead of effectively five back-to-back Tests beginning on November 30", according to cricket.com.au.
"While the fast bowler was elevated to the Test vice-captaincy in 2018 and has been around the limited-overs 'leadership group' for some time, prior to Saturday's match at the SCG, Hazlewood had never led a side in his 14-year professional career," according to the report.
"It was pretty exciting and a little bit nerve-wracking," Hazlewood said after the match. "I certainly enjoyed it and it was a bit of a challenge there while that (James Vince and Sam Billings) partnership was going. And then we got a couple of wickets and that set the game up."
The veteran pacer took the decisive decision of bringing himself back into the attack to break the 122-run stand between Vince and Billings that had briefly put England in the driver's seat. The dismissal of Vince proved to be the turning point of the match. Hazlewood trapped Vince lbw for 60, finishing with 2/33 from seven overs despite conceding 0/21 from his first two overs, which he put down to the pressure of leading the side.
At first, I was more concerned with how everyone else was bowling than how I was bowling, according to Hazlewood. "But (at some point), I found my groove there. Then, everything appeared to be operating fairly smoothly. We have Kez (Alex Carey), a keeper with much expertise, on hand to handle all the angles with the field and many tasks. Additionally, Ashton Agar and Adam Zampa, two spinners, have played a lot of cricket. I did my best to stay out of their way because they are experts in their fields.
"I never had to step in at all or argue, so it was easy sailing," he continued.