JOSH Hazlewood and Erin Osborne are frontline bowlers for Australia’s Ashes cricket campaigns in England which begin tonight when the men’s Test series kicks off in Cardiff.
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While Hazlewood begins his first Ashes series at Cardiff’s Sophia Gardens tonight, Osborne and her Southern Stars teammates begin their women’s Ashes series later this month with a One-Day International series at Somerset on July 21.
While it’s unique for a regional centre like Tamworth to have a representative in both teams at the same time, what’s also highly unusual is the fact they played a lot of their junior representative cricket together.
Former NSW Country top order batsman, Northern NSW Emus player and secretary Terry Browne, can attest to the fact both learnt a lot of their early representative cricket playing together in Tamworth junior teams.
“They both played together for a few years in those junior teams,” he said.
“I should know because I coached them.
“Josh was always good and was playing up a year. And Erin was just smart.
“I coached them for a couple of years and then Col Fitzgerald took them over.
“They had a pretty good side too.
“Col’s young bloke, Blake Fitzgerald, also captained NSW Under 17s.
“There were plenty of good young kids in those sides.
“It just shows you what can happen.
“They’ve both worked extremely hard to get where they are and both have done extremely well.
“But it’s just unique they played together for so long in those junior rep teams.
Osborne, 26, made her international debut in early 2009 after topping the wicket-taking aggregates in her debut season for New South Wales in the Women’s National Cricket League.
She has since played 31 One-Day Internationals for Australia.
Hazlewood, 24, is the youngest fast bowler to represent New South Wales and, when he made his One-Day International debut on June 22, 2010 he was the youngest player to debut for Australia.
He also won an Under 19 World Cup with Australia (2008) and was part of the Australian side to win this year’s World Cup at the MCG.
He made his Test debut for Australia at the Gabba in Brisbane last December, taking 5-68 in the first innings against India.
He has now played five Tests and taken 24 wickets at an average of 19.08.