It's the morning after Royal Challengers Bengaluru's (RCB) thrilling last-ball win over Mumbai Indians in Raipur. Josh Hazlewood walks into the coffee shop at the team hotel after completing his recovery routine with a round of golf.
There's a fitness tracker strapped to one wrist, a smartwatch on the other. Trainers and physios back in Australia are probably closely monitoring numbers and recovery data. But beyond the metrics, Hazlewood also trusts the feel as much as anything else.
"Sometimes the best recovery is to keep moving," Hazlewood says. "The longer you sit still, the more you stiffen up. Guys have different ways to switch off. Pickleball and padel have become popular. Sometimes it's just about getting away from the game mentally.
"You're here for 14 games but only actually on the field for about 24 hours across ten weeks, so there's a lot of downtime. Some players think about the game too much in their room and almost play the match before it happens. So there's definitely a [need to maintain] balance."
For Hazlewood, that balance has become especially important over the past few months. A string of lower-body injuries, including a right hamstring strain and Achilles soreness, forced him out of the Ashes and the T20 World Cup.
The disappointment of missing big-ticket cricket like that turned recovery into a mental exercise as much as it was physical. This is why sitting here now, he feels encouraged by where his body is at.
"Yeah, I feel like it's getting close," Hazlewood says. "There's always something niggling away, but at the moment things are going pretty well. It was obviously a tough few months over the Australian summer. I missed some big cricket, which was frustrating, but when you're fit, there's always cricket to be played, so that's always a positive.
"I feel like the rhythm's pretty good now. I've played a fair few games in a row now, so confidence in the body is good. Even though it's only four overs a game, the intensity is obviously sky-high and everything's feeling in a pretty good place."
'It's a bit like bowling with Patty, Starcy'
Hazlewood hasn't quite replicated the dominant season he had in IPL 2025, though there have been flashes at various stages, like his 4 for 12 against Delhi Capitals at Kotla, or his 1 for 20 against Lucknow Super Giants at the Ekana.
But the spells he values most are not necessarily the ones where conditions did half the work for him. What he treasures more are the nights when he is forced to fight his way back into the contest after being taken on. Like the game against MI in Raipur. Hazlewood went for 16 in his opening over, with Rohit Sharma taking him apart with two fours and a six. Yet he clawed his way back to finish with 1 for 33 from four overs.
"There are certain spells that come to mind, but I'm probably more proud of the efforts where you fight back," he says. "If you're bowling on a flat wicket and go for 2 for 40 while everyone else goes for 50 or 60, I think those are the satisfying games.
"When things are going your way, like the Delhi game this year with Bhuvi [Bhuvneshwar Kumar] and me, it's honestly not that difficult. You're just bowling good balls and you've earned that momentum. But when the batting side is dominant and your first over goes for 20, and then you fight back with yorkers or changes of pace and finish with decent figures, those are the games I'm probably most proud of."
At RCB, Hazlewood has fed off the partnership with Bhuvneshwar, which he alludes to. They are contrasting in their styles, but have together given RCB control and reliability across phases. One game that stood out was against Punjab Kings, their opponents on Sunday, in IPL 2025.
Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar produced a death-bowling masterclass, conceding just 28 runs across the final four overs while repeatedly nailing yorkers under pressure. Between them, they landed eight yorkers in that stretch and kept PBKS to 157.
"It's a little bit like bowling with Patty [Pat Cummins ] and Starcy [Mitchell Starc] for Australia," he says. "Bhuvi probably pitches it up a little more and swings the ball. I can hit the seam and get a bit of bounce. It's nice to have balance in your attack. Last year and this year we've had a nice mix.
"We don't have Yash [Dayal] this year with the left-arm angle, but Rasikh [Salam] has stepped into that role nicely. Then we've got a legspinner and a left-arm spinner. It feels a bit like Australia - every base is covered. If you've got three bowlers of the same style, the batter can get a pretty good read on what's happening. Different skills and different styles make it harder."
Hazlewood believes this IPL season in particular has reinforced the value of traditional fast-bowling methods, even amid a format constantly obsessed with innovation.
"I think trends come and go," he says. They can last a whole tournament or just three or four games. Conditions play a huge role. Batters are probably getting ahead of bowlers a little bit at the moment.
"In T20 cricket, if you're ahead of the batter mentally, it can feel like the easiest game in the world. If you're behind, it can feel impossible. That can be the difference between going for six runs in an over and 25.
"Some batters now are trying to win the battle in the first couple of balls of the over. Sometimes the less you change, the better. Sometimes you need to change more. It's a big game of cat and mouse."
And perhaps no game captured this cat-and-mouse game better than last year's IPL final, also against PBKS, in Ahmedabad, where RCB sensationally defended 190. Hazlewood found himself bowling the final over with the title effectively secured after the first two balls. And he remembers very little of the over itself beyond the basics running through his head repeatedly.
"Keep my foot behind the line, don't bowl a wide, don't bowl a no-ball," he remembers thinking to himself. "Wherever it lands, it lands. The result was basically done after the first two balls, so it was just a matter of ticking off those little things. I was probably bowling not great balls at the end, but it didn't really matter."
And the aftermath of the win brought about some raw, unfiltered emotions. For Hazlewood, who was previously part of an IPL triumph in 2021 with Chennai Super Kings, it felt extra special.
"It was special for me to do it for the guys who'd been here for 18 years," he says. "Some of the support staff had been here a long time without much reward, so it was great to win one there. At CSK, winning finals almost felt like normality, like it was just another year where we were in the final or winning it.
"Here, it felt like the franchise had really earned that first one. This year, I still feel like we haven't played our best cricket in one complete game yet, even though we're on top of the table somehow. Last year, we built nicely towards the back end, so hopefully we can do that again."
Hazlewood sees one big difference between the RCB he left after 2023 and the one he returned to in 2025. "I think there's a lot more calmness around the group now," he says. "The team itself is more experienced and there are some really seasoned people in both the playing group and support staff. Earlier, it probably felt a bit more like a rollercoaster based purely on results. Now it feels more level and process-driven rather than emotional."