🔗 Share this article

The historic Ashes series may offer a reason to cheer, but this series will also witness the Aussie side celebrate more birthday parties than Timezone in the nineties. Recent addition Jake Weatherald celebrated his thirty-first birthday a day before the squad was named. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day before the Perth Test. Beau Webster reaches 32 just before Brisbane, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on day two in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood turns 35 on the final day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 by the time January is out.

Older Squad Interest Builds

For a couple of years there has been growing fascination with the average age of this side and particularly the bowling unit. It is rare to have nearly all player in a Test team being over 30, aside from young mascot Cameron Green and custody-weekend visitor Sam Konstas. But it didn’t logically follow that greater age was a disadvantage: a Test team featuring a four-bowler lineup with over 1,500 wickets between them is scarcely a disadvantage, and it stands to reason that all of those bowlers are deep into their careers.

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

Perhaps what most amplified the discussion is that the backup bowlers over that period, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also well into their 30s. Emerging pacemen have floated into squads – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before vanishing for years with injuries, meaning there has been no clear line of succession.

Transition Forced by Setbacks

So far, that hasn’t mattered, as the Big Four plus Boland have continued backing up. Any side knows that having a batch of same-generation players might mean a group of similarly-timed retirements, but so far change has remained hypothetical: a process that would indeed be arriving the bend when she comes, but one that hadn’t yet steamed into view.

Now, abruptly, transition is upon them, imposed on this Aussie team in the space of a short period. The back injury to Pat Cummins was greeted with equanimity: he would probably only sit out the opening match, was the team management view, and as the first-change bowler behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could comfortably be covered for by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has gone down with a hamstring injury, the balance undergoes a much more significant shift with two players absent rather than a single 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 composition of the side. Boland handling the new ball is not unusual in his domestic career, but he has been so effective in Test matches entering the attack after seven or eight overs of initial onslaught. Now he’ll likely have to be the man up front.

Debutant Confronts Expectations

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at 31 years old himself won’t be an overawed youth, but he might become an overawed 31-year-old. A full stadium crowd, 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 newspaper profiles describe him as relaxed. He could be wheeled onto the field on a banana lounge and still be nervous.

Register to The Spin

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 surety of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, mumble mumble. It's unclear what further injuries the first Test may bring. It's unknown whether Cummins will be fit 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 turning into longer layoffs.

Future Unclear

The back half of the series may witness the primary four bowlers back together and all going well. Or it might see transition setting in much earlier than the long-term aim of 2027 in England. Not through Neser, who is seemingly the next option and could be a excellent day-night Brisbane option, but after that with options unclear. Sean Abbott was in the initial squad, though he’s now also hurt and has not yet played a Test. Richardson has just had his crash-test-dummy arm repaired, and this format is no place for gradually starting one’s work. After them lies the real unknown, and amid it all a chance for the visiting team. You can hear that change a-coming, coming around the corner, and the English team hasn't seen the success since they can't recall when.