🔗 Share this article

The historic Ashes series may offer one cause for celebration, but this contest will also see the Aussie side host a greater number of birthdays than Timezone in the nineties. Recent addition Jake Weatherald celebrated his thirty-first birthday a day before the team was named. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day preceding the Perth Test. Beau Webster turns 32 just ahead of the Brisbane match, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on day two in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood becomes 35 on the fifth day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 by the time January is over.

Older Squad Fascination Builds

For a couple of years there has been growing fascination with the average age of this team and especially the bowling unit. It is unusual to have almost every player in a Test team being over 30, except for novelty-sized mascot Cameron Green and occasional visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that older age was a disadvantage: a Test team featuring a four-bowler lineup with 1,568 wickets between them is hardly a disadvantage, and it makes sense that all of those bowlers are well into their professional lives.

I've never felt this sure at the beginning of an away Ashes series | a former player

Perhaps what most amplified the discussion is that the reserve players over that time, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also well into their thirties. Younger bowlers have briefly joined squads – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before disappearing for years with injuries, meaning there has been no obvious replacement plan.

Change Imposed by Setbacks

So far, that hasn't been an issue, as the core four plus Boland have kept on performing. Any team knows that having a batch of same-generation players might mean a batch of simultaneous departures, but so far change has remained theoretical: a process that would indeed be coming round the mountain when she comes, but one that had not steamed into view.

Now, suddenly, transition is here, forced upon this Aussie team in the span of a short period. The back injury to Pat Cummins was greeted with equanimity: he would likely only miss the first Test, was the team management view, and as the first-change bowler behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could easily be covered for by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has been sidelined with a hamstring strain, the team balance undergoes a much more significant change with two players missing rather than a single one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two tight-line right-armers give the balance and control that enables Starc’s left-arm speed and movement to be used more as a attacking option. Losing both of them means a fundamental shift in the composition of the side. Boland taking the new ball is nothing new in his first-class career, but he has been so effective in Test matches coming on after seven or eight overs of initial onslaught. Now he’ll probably have to be the opening bowler.

Debutant Confronts Pressure

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at thirty-one years of age himself won’t be an overawed youth, but he might become an nervous thirty-one-year-old. A packed stadium, half of it English, for the first Test of a eagerly awaited Ashes series will not make for an easy debut, no matter how many media stories describe him as laid-back. He could be brought onto the ground on a sun lounger and still be nervous.

Sign up to our cricket newsletter

It's uncertain, it might all go swimmingly for this new attack. It might not. What is notable is how rapidly Australia have transitioned from the certainty of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, and others. Who knows what further injuries the opening match may cause. It's unknown whether Cummins will be good to go for the Brisbane Test, and good to back up after that match, given how tricky stress injuries can be. Who knows how long Hazlewood might be out, with a track record of getting injured early in series and a pattern of minor injuries becoming extended absences.

Outlook Unclear

The latter part of the contest may witness the primary four bowlers reunited and all performing well. Or it might see transition beginning much sooner than the long-term aim of 2027 in England. Not through Neser, who is seemingly next in line and could be a great pink-ball Brisbane choice, but after that with options uncertain. Sean Abbott was in the initial squad, though he’s now also injured and has never played a Test. Richardson has just had his crash-test-dummy arm repaired, and this level is no place for easing into one’s work. Beyond them lies the true uncertainty, and throughout it a chance for the visiting team. You can hear that train a-coming, coming around the corner, and the English team hasn't seen the success since they can't recall when.