Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood has stated that the Baggie Green could have a bowler as the vice-captain of the Test team. After the suspension of former captain and vice-captain Steven Smith and David Warner, Tim Paine has been handed the captaincy of the longest format of the game for Australia.

They have, however, not named a vice-captain as of yet and Hazlewood believes that a bowler could take up the mantle because the bowling unit of the Aussies is “steady”, unlike their batting counterpart.  

"A lot of the batters are starting off or at different parts of their careers. The bowling attack is steady and we’ve all pretty much cemented our spots in the team."

Endorsing himself, Hazlewood added that leadership is a natural thing for him. He also added that this trait came to him early in his career and that the bowlers are open to being the deputy to Tim Paine.

"I think leadership comes pretty naturally to me," said Hazlewood.

"Even over the last couple of years, it’s become a very different team to when I started and I’ve become a leader pretty early on in my career.

"Whether the VC title is next to our name isn’t going to change too much with how we go about things as a bowling unit working with Painey … but we’re obviously open to it and we’ll see what happens."     

Hazlewood, who has played in 40 Test matches and has taken 151 wickets at an average of 26.84, certainly has the experience to be the number two to Tim Paine but only time will be able to tell whether that could actually happen.