🔗 Share this article

The Ashes may offer one cause for celebration, but this contest will also witness the Aussie side celebrate more birthday parties than an arcade in the 90s. New boy Jake Weatherald had his 31st a day before the squad was named. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day preceding the Perth Test. Beau Webster turns 32 just ahead of 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.

Older Team Fascination Grows

For a couple of years there has been mounting fascination with the age of this team and especially 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 custody-weekend visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that greater age was a disadvantage: a Test team boasting a four-bowler lineup with 1,568 wickets between them is scarcely a disadvantage, and it makes sense that all of those bowlers are well 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 really highlighted the talking point is that the reserve players over that time, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also deep into their 30s. Younger bowlers have floated into squads – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before disappearing for years with injuries, meaning there has been no clear line of succession.

Change Imposed by Setbacks

So far, that hasn't been an issue, 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 group of simultaneous departures, but so far transition has remained hypothetical: a process that would certainly be coming round the bend when she comes, but one that hadn’t yet become visible.

Now, suddenly, transition is upon them, imposed on this Aussie team in the span of a few weeks. The back injury to Pat Cummins was greeted with equanimity: he would likely only sit out the first Test, 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 gone down with a hamstring injury, the team balance experiences a much more significant change with two key bowlers missing rather than one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two accurate right-arm bowlers give the balance and control that allows Starc’s left-arm pace and swing to be used more as a weapon of attack. Missing both of them means a fundamental shift in the balance of the side. Boland taking the new ball is not unusual in his domestic 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 opening bowler.

Newcomer Faces Pressure

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at 31 years old himself isn't an overawed youth, but he might become an nervous thirty-one-year-old. A full stadium crowd, half of it English, for the opening Test of a eagerly awaited Ashes series will not make for an simple first match, no matter how many media stories portray him as laid-back. He could be wheeled onto the ground on a sun lounger and still be anxious.

Register to The Spin

Who knows, it might all go swimmingly for this revamped bowling lineup. It might not. What is striking is how quickly Australia have transitioned from the surety of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the uncertainty of Starc, Lyon, mumble mumble. Who knows what further injuries the opening match 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 initially small injuries becoming longer layoffs.

Future Unclear

The latter part of the contest may see the main four bowlers back together and all performing well. Or it might experience transition setting in much earlier than the stretch goal of 2027 in the UK. Not through Neser, who is apparently next in line and could be a excellent pink-ball Brisbane choice, but beyond that with options uncertain. Sean Abbott was in the initial squad, though he’s now also hurt and has never played a Test match. Richardson has just had his crash-test-dummy 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 opposing side. You can hear that change a-coming, rolling round the corner, and England ain’t seen the success since they don’t know when.