Starc and Hazlewood likely to sit out initial games of IPL 2026

Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood have joined a growing list of Australian players who will miss part of or the whole of IPL 2026

ESPNcricinfo staff

Published: Mar 20, 2026, 5:23 AM (4 hrs ago)

Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood are unlikely to be available for their teams' first few IPL 2026 games with Cricket Australia (CA) understood to be monitoring the workloads of their premier fast bowlers keeping in mind the busy cricket calendar ahead.

The update means Starc (Delhi Capitals) and Hazlewood (Royal Challengers Bengaluru) have joined a rapidly growing list of Australian cricketers who will be unavailable for a part or the entirety of the upcoming IPL season.

Pat Cummins had earlier been ruled out of the start of the tournament for Sunrisers Hyderabad, while Jack Edwards (Sunrisers Hyderabad) was ruled out altogether on Friday. Nathan Ellis (Chennai Super Kings) is also expected to be ruled out with a hamstring injury.

Cummins played just one Test in the Australian summer due to a stress injury in his back. That match, the third Ashes Test in December, was Cummins' only appearance in a representative game since July 2025, when Australia were in the West Indies.

Hazlewood, meanwhile, sat out the entire Ashes series because of hamstring and Achilles issues. Hazlewood did play some of the games in the white-ball series at home against South Africa and India as well as away in New Zealand last year and a Sheffield Shield game in November last year, but has been out for the most part of the last several months.

Starc was Australia's bowling frontman at the Ashes, playing all five Tests and winning the Player-of-the-Series award for his haul of 31 wickets, which headlined Australia's 4-1 win. He was also in action in the BBL towards the end of the season. Starc has retired from T20Is, so he was not available for the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka in February-March this year, where Australia crashed out in the first round. Cummins and Hazlewood missed that event as well. Australia will play up to 21 Tests from August 2026 to July 2027.

The IPL starts on March 28 and will run till late May.

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