🔗 Share this article

The historic Ashes series could provide one cause for celebration, but this series will also see the Aussie side celebrate more birthday parties than Timezone in the nineties. New boy Jake Weatherald had his 31st a day before the squad was named. Nathan Lyon celebrates 38 the day preceding the Test in Perth. Beau Webster turns 32 just before Brisbane, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on day two in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood becomes 35 on the final day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 before January is over.

Ageing Squad Interest Grows

For a couple of years there has been growing curiosity with the average age of this side and particularly the bowling attack. It is unusual to have nearly all player in a Test team being over 30, aside from novelty-sized mascot Cameron Green and occasional visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that greater age was a disadvantage: a Test squad boasting a four-bowler lineup with over 1,500 wickets between them is scarcely a weakness, and it stands to reason that all of those bowlers are well into their professional lives.

I can’t remember ever being so confident at the beginning of an Ashes tour | a former player

Perhaps what really highlighted the talking point is that the backup bowlers over that time, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also deep into their 30s. Emerging pacemen have floated into teams – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before vanishing for years with injuries, meaning there has been no clear line of succession.

Change Forced 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 similarly-aged players might mean a batch of simultaneous departures, but so far change has remained hypothetical: a train that would certainly be coming round the bend when she comes, but one that had not steamed into view.

Now, abruptly, transition is upon them, forced upon this Aussie team in the span of a short period. The back injury to Pat Cummins was greeted with equanimity: he would probably only miss the first Test, was the Cricket Australia assessment, and as the first bowling change behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could easily be replaced by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has been sidelined with a hamstring injury, the team balance undergoes a much more significant change with two key bowlers absent rather than a single one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two accurate right-arm bowlers give the balance and control that enables Starc’s left-arm speed and movement to be used more as a weapon of attack. Missing both of them means a major adjustment in the balance of the team. Boland handling the new ball is not unusual in his domestic career, but he has been so effective in Tests entering the attack after seven to eight overs of early pressure. Now he’ll likely have to be the opening bowler.

Debutant Confronts Expectations

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at thirty-one years of age himself isn't 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 deliriously anticipated Ashes series will not make for an easy debut, no matter how many newspaper profiles describe him as laid-back. He could be wheeled onto the ground on a banana lounge and still be anxious.

Sign up to The Spin

It's uncertain, it might all go smoothly for this new attack. It might not. What is notable is how quickly Australia have transitioned from the surety of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, mumble mumble. Who knows what new injuries the first Test may cause. It's unknown whether Cummins will be fit for Brisbane, and able to continue after Brisbane, given how tricky stress fractures can be. It's uncertain how long Hazlewood might be out, with a track record of going down early in series and a history of initially small injuries turning into extended absences.

Outlook Unclear

The latter part of the series may see the primary four bowlers back together and all going well. Or it might experience transition setting in much earlier than the stretch goal of 2027 in the UK. Not through Neser, who is seemingly next in line and could be a excellent pink-ball Brisbane option, but after that with choices uncertain. Sean Abbott was in the original team, though he’s now also hurt and has never played a Test. Richardson has just had his crash-test-dummy arm put back on, and this level is not the place for easing into one’s work. After them lies the true uncertainty, and throughout it a chance for the opposing side. You can hear that train approaching, coming around the corner, and the English team ain’t seen the sunshine since they don’t know when.