🔗 Share this article

The Ashes could provide a reason to cheer, but this series will also witness the Australian team celebrate more birthday parties than an arcade in the 90s. Recent addition Jake Weatherald had his 31st a day prior to the team was announced. Nathan Lyon celebrates 38 the day preceding the Perth Test. Beau Webster turns 32 just before the Brisbane match, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on the second day in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood turns 35 on the fifth day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 by the time January is out.

Ageing Team Interest Builds

For a couple of years there has been mounting curiosity with the average age of this side and particularly the bowling unit. It is unusual to have almost every player near a Test side being over 30, except for novelty-sized mascot Cameron Green and occasional visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that greater age was a disadvantage: a Test team featuring a four-man attack with 1,568 wickets between them is hardly a weakness, and it stands to reason that all of those bowlers are deep into their professional lives.

I can’t remember ever being so confident 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. Emerging pacemen have briefly joined squads – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before disappearing for years with injury, meaning there has been no obvious replacement plan.

Transition Imposed by Injuries

So far, that hasn't been an issue, as the Big Four plus Boland have continued backing up. Any team knows that having a group of similarly-aged players might mean a batch of similarly-timed retirements, but so far transition has remained hypothetical: a process that would certainly be coming round the mountain when she comes, but one that hadn’t yet steamed into view.

Now, suddenly, change is here, imposed on this Australian squad in the span of a few weeks. The spinal issue to Pat Cummins was greeted with equanimity: he would likely only miss the first Test, was the team management view, and as the first bowling change behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could comfortably be covered for by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has been sidelined with a hamstring strain, the balance undergoes a far greater shift with two key bowlers absent rather than a single one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two tight-line right-armers give the stability and precision that allows Starc’s left-arm speed and movement to be used more as a weapon of attack. Losing both of them means a major adjustment in the composition of the side. Boland taking the new ball is nothing new in his first-class career, but he has been so successful in Test matches coming on after seven or eight overs of initial onslaught. Now he’ll probably have to be the man up front.

Newcomer Confronts Pressure

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at thirty-one years of age himself isn't an intimidated youngster, but he might become an nervous thirty-one-year-old. A packed stadium, half of it English, for the opening Test of a eagerly awaited Ashes series will not make for an easy debut, no matter how many newspaper profiles portray him as relaxed. 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 work out. What is notable is how quickly Australia have moved from the certainty of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, and others. It's unclear what further injuries the opening match may cause. It's unknown whether Cummins will be good to go for Brisbane, and good to back up after Brisbane, given how tricky stress injuries can be. Who knows how long Hazlewood might be sidelined, with a track record of getting injured early in series and a history of initially small injuries becoming longer layoffs.

Future Unclear

The latter part of the contest may see the main four bowlers reunited and all going well. Or it might see transition beginning much sooner than the stretch goal of 2027 in England. Not through Neser, who is apparently next in line and could be a excellent day-night Brisbane choice, but beyond that with choices unclear. Sean Abbott was in the original team, though he’s now also hurt and has never played a Test match. Richardson has just had his injury-prone arm put back on, and this format is no place for gradually starting one’s work. After them lies the true uncertainty, and amid it all a chance for the visiting team. You can hear that train approaching, coming around the bend, and the English team hasn't seen the sunshine since they don’t know when.