🔗 Share this article

The historic Ashes series could provide a reason to cheer, but this series will also witness the Australian team celebrate more birthday parties than an arcade in the nineties. New boy Jake Weatherald celebrated his 31st a day prior to the team was named. Nathan Lyon celebrates 38 the day before the Test in Perth. Beau Webster turns 32 just before Brisbane, 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 Squad Interest Grows

For two or three years there has been growing fascination with the average age of this side and especially the bowling attack. It is unusual to have almost every player near 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 scarcely a weakness, and it makes sense that all of those bowlers are well into their careers.

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

Perhaps what most amplified the discussion is that the reserve players over that period, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also well into their thirties. Younger bowlers have briefly joined teams – 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 mattered, as the core four plus Boland have kept on backing up. Any team knows that having a batch of similarly-aged players might mean a batch of similarly-timed departures, but so far transition has remained hypothetical: a process that would indeed be arriving the bend when she comes, but one that had not steamed into view.

Now, suddenly, transition is here, forced upon this Australian squad in the span of a few weeks. The spinal issue to Pat Cummins was taken in stride: 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 gone down with a hamstring strain, the team balance experiences a much more significant shift with two players absent rather than one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two accurate right-arm bowlers give the stability and precision that allows 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 taking the new ball is nothing new in his first-class career, but he has been so successful in Tests entering the attack after seven to 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 thirty-one years of age himself won’t be an overawed youth, but he might become an overawed 31-year-old. A full stadium crowd, partly English, for the opening Test of a deliriously anticipated Ashes series will not make for an easy debut, no matter how many media stories describe him as laid-back. He could be brought onto the ground on a banana lounge and still be anxious.

Register to The Spin

It's uncertain, it might all go swimmingly for this revamped bowling lineup. It might not. What is striking is how quickly Australia have transitioned from the certainty of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, and others. Who knows what further injuries the first Test may cause. Who knows whether Cummins will be good to go for the Brisbane Test, and able to continue after that match, given how tricky stress injuries can be. It's uncertain how long Hazlewood might be sidelined, with a history of getting injured early in series and a pattern of minor injuries turning into extended absences.

Future Uncertain

The back half of the series may see the main four bowlers back together and all going well. Or it might experience transition beginning much earlier than the long-term aim of 2027 in England. Not through Neser, who is apparently the next option and could be a great pink-ball Brisbane option, but after that with choices uncertain. Sean Abbott was in the original team, though he’s now also hurt and has never played a Test. Richardson has just had his crash-test-dummy arm put back on, and this level is not the place for easing into one’s work. After them lies the real unknown, and throughout it a chance for the visiting team. You can sense that train a-coming, coming around the corner, and England ain’t seen the sunshine since they can't recall when.