🔗 Share this article

The historic Ashes series may offer one cause for celebration, 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 thirty-first birthday a day before the squad was announced. 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 fifth day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 before January is over.

Ageing Team Interest Grows

For a couple of years there has been growing curiosity with the age of this team and especially the bowling attack. It is unusual to have almost every player in a Test side being over 30, except for young mascot Cameron Green and custody-weekend visitor Sam Konstas. But it didn’t logically follow that greater age was a problem: a Test squad boasting a four-bowler lineup with over 1,500 wickets between them is hardly a weakness, and it makes sense 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 talking point is that the reserve players over that period, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also deep into their 30s. Emerging pacemen have briefly joined teams – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before vanishing for years with injury, meaning there has been no clear line of succession.

Transition Imposed by Injuries

So far, that hasn’t mattered, as the Big Four plus Boland have kept on backing up. Any side knows that having a group of similarly-aged players might mean a batch of simultaneous departures, but so far change has remained hypothetical: a process that would indeed be coming round the bend when she comes, but one that had not steamed into view.

Now, suddenly, change is here, forced upon this Aussie team in the space of a short period. The spinal issue to Pat Cummins was taken in stride: he would probably only sit out the opening match, was the Cricket Australia view, and as the first-change bowler behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could comfortably be replaced by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has been sidelined with a hamstring injury, the team balance undergoes a far greater change with two players missing rather than 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 fundamental shift in the balance of the team. Boland handling the new ball is nothing new in his first-class career, but he has been so effective in Tests entering the attack after seven to eight overs of early pressure. Now he’ll probably have to be the opening bowler.

Newcomer Confronts Pressure

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at thirty-one years of age himself isn't an overawed youth, but he might become an overawed 31-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 wheeled onto the ground on a sun lounger and still be nervous.

Register to our cricket newsletter

Who knows, it might all go smoothly for this new attack. It might not. What is striking is how quickly Australia have moved from the certainty of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, mumble mumble. It's unclear what further injuries the first Test may cause. Who knows whether Cummins will be fit for the Brisbane Test, and good to back up after that match, given how tricky stress injuries can be. Who knows how long Hazlewood might be sidelined, with a history of going down early in series and a history of minor injuries becoming longer layoffs.

Outlook Unclear

The back half of the contest may see the main four bowlers back together and all performing well. Or it might experience transition beginning much earlier than the stretch goal of 2027 in England. Not through Neser, who is apparently the next option and could be a excellent day-night Brisbane choice, but beyond that with choices uncertain. 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 injury-prone arm put back on, and this level is no 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 change a-coming, coming around the bend, and England ain’t seen the success since they don’t know when.