🔗 Share this article

The historic Ashes series may offer one cause for celebration, but this series will also witness the Aussie side celebrate more birthday parties than Timezone in the nineties. Recent addition Jake Weatherald had his 31st a day prior to the squad was named. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day preceding the Test in Perth. Beau Webster turns 32 just ahead of the Brisbane match, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on the second day in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood becomes 35 on the final day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 before 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 attack. It is rare to have nearly all player near a Test team being over 30, except for young 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-bowler lineup with 1,568 wickets between them is scarcely a weakness, 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 | Mark Ramprakash

Perhaps what really highlighted the discussion is that the backup bowlers over that time, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also well into their thirties. Younger bowlers have briefly joined teams – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before vanishing for years with injury, meaning there has been no obvious replacement plan.

Change Imposed by Injuries

So far, that hasn’t mattered, as the core four plus Boland have continued performing. Any side knows that having a batch of similarly-aged players might mean a batch of similarly-timed retirements, but so far transition has remained hypothetical: a train that would certainly be coming round the bend when she comes, but one that had not become visible.

Now, abruptly, transition is here, forced upon this Aussie team in the space of a few weeks. The spinal issue to Pat Cummins was taken in stride: he would likely only miss the opening match, was the team management assessment, and as the first bowling change behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could comfortably be replaced by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has been sidelined with a hamstring strain, the balance undergoes a far greater change with two key bowlers missing 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. 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 Test matches coming on after seven or eight overs of early pressure. Now he’ll probably have to be the man up front.

Newcomer Confronts Expectations

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at thirty-one years of age himself won’t be an intimidated youngster, but he might become an nervous thirty-one-year-old. A full stadium crowd, partly English, for the first Test of a eagerly awaited Ashes series will not make for an easy debut, no matter how many media stories portray him as relaxed. He could be wheeled onto the field on a sun lounger and still be anxious.

Register to The Spin

It's uncertain, it might all go swimmingly for this new attack. It might not. What is striking is how rapidly Australia have moved from the surety 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 fit for Brisbane, and able to continue after that match, given how complicated stress fractures can be. Who knows how long Hazlewood might be out, with a history of going down early in series and a pattern of initially small injuries turning into extended absences.

Future Uncertain

The latter part of the contest may witness the main four bowlers reunited and all performing well. Or it might experience transition setting in much sooner than the long-term aim of 2027 in England. Not through Neser, who is seemingly the next option and could be a great pink-ball Brisbane option, but beyond that with choices uncertain. 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 format is not the place for easing into one’s work. After them lies the real unknown, and amid it all a chance for the visiting team. You can sense that train approaching, rolling round the corner, and the English team hasn't seen the sunshine since they don’t know when.