🔗 Share this article

The historic Ashes series may offer one cause for celebration, but this contest will also see the Australian team host more birthday parties than Timezone in the 90s. Recent addition Jake Weatherald had his 31st a day before the squad was announced. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day before the Perth Test. Beau Webster reaches 32 just ahead of the Brisbane match, 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 by the time January is over.

Older Team Interest Grows

For a couple of years there has been mounting curiosity with the average age of this side and particularly the bowling attack. It is rare to have almost every player in a Test team being above thirty, except for young mascot Cameron Green and custody-weekend visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that greater age was a disadvantage: a Test team boasting a four-man attack with over 1,500 wickets between them is hardly a weakness, and it stands to reason that all of those bowlers are well into their careers.

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 reserve players over that period, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also deep into their 30s. Emerging pacemen have floated into squads – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before disappearing for years with injuries, meaning there has been no obvious replacement plan.

Change Forced by Setbacks

So far, that hasn't been an issue, as the core four plus Boland have kept on backing up. Any side knows that having a batch of same-generation players might mean a batch of similarly-timed retirements, but so far change has remained theoretical: a process that would certainly be coming round the bend when she comes, but one that had not steamed into view.

Now, abruptly, transition is here, forced upon this Australian squad in the space of a few weeks. The spinal issue to Pat Cummins was greeted with equanimity: he would likely only sit out the opening match, was the team management assessment, and as the first-change bowler behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could easily be replaced by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has been sidelined with a hamstring injury, the balance experiences a far greater change with two players absent rather than one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two accurate right-arm bowlers give the stability and precision that enables Starc’s left-arm speed and movement to be used more as a attacking option. Losing both of them means a major adjustment in the balance of the side. Boland handling the new ball is nothing new in his domestic career, but he has been so successful in Tests entering the attack after seven to eight overs of early pressure. Now he’ll probably have to be the man up front.

Newcomer Faces Pressure

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at 31 years old 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 deliriously anticipated Ashes series will not make for an simple first match, no matter how many newspaper profiles portray him as laid-back. He could be brought onto the field on a banana lounge and still be nervous.

Register to The Spin

It's uncertain, it might all go smoothly for this new attack. It might not. What is striking is how rapidly Australia have moved from the certainty of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, and others. Who knows what new injuries the first Test may bring. It's unknown whether Cummins will be good to go for the Brisbane Test, and able to continue after Brisbane, given how tricky stress fractures can be. It's uncertain how long Hazlewood might be sidelined, with a history of going down early in tournaments and a pattern of initially small injuries becoming longer layoffs.

Future Unclear

The latter part of the contest may see the primary four bowlers back together and all performing well. Or it might see transition setting in much sooner than the stretch goal of 2027 in the UK. Not through Neser, who is seemingly the next option and could be a excellent day-night Brisbane option, but beyond that with choices unclear. Sean Abbott was in the initial squad, though he’s now also injured and has never played a Test match. Richardson has just had his injury-prone arm put back on, and this level is not the place for gradually starting one’s work. After them lies the real unknown, and amid it all a chance for the opposing side. You can hear that change approaching, rolling round the bend, and the English team ain’t seen the success since they can't recall when.