🔗 Share this article

The historic Ashes series may offer one cause for celebration, but this contest will also see the Aussie side host more birthday parties than Timezone in the nineties. New boy Jake Weatherald celebrated his 31st a day before the team was announced. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day preceding the Test in Perth. Beau Webster reaches 32 just ahead of 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 out.

Ageing Team Interest Builds

For two or three years there has been mounting fascination with the average age of this team and particularly the bowling attack. It is rare to have nearly all player near a Test side being over 30, except for novelty-sized mascot Cameron Green and custody-weekend visitor Sam Konstas. But it didn’t logically follow that older age was a disadvantage: a Test team featuring a four-bowler lineup with 1,568 wickets between them is scarcely a weakness, and it stands to reason that all of those bowlers are well into their professional lives.

I've never felt this sure at the beginning of an Ashes tour | Mark Ramprakash

Perhaps what most amplified the talking point is that the reserve players over that time, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also well into their thirties. Younger bowlers have briefly joined squads – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before vanishing for years with injuries, meaning there has been no clear line of succession.

Change Imposed by Setbacks

So far, that hasn’t mattered, as the Big Four plus Boland have kept on performing. Any side knows that having a batch of similarly-aged players might mean a group of similarly-timed departures, but so far change 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, abruptly, transition is here, imposed on this Australian squad in the span of a short period. The spinal issue 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 bowling change 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 experiences a much more significant shift with two key bowlers absent rather than a single one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two accurate right-arm bowlers give the balance and control that allows Starc’s left-arm speed and movement to be used more as a attacking option. Missing both of them means a fundamental shift in the composition of the team. Boland handling the new ball is nothing new in his domestic career, but he has been so effective in Tests coming on after seven or eight overs of early pressure. Now he’ll likely have to be the man up front.

Debutant Confronts Pressure

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at 31 years old himself won’t be an intimidated youngster, but he might become an nervous thirty-one-year-old. A packed stadium, partly 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 banana lounge and still be nervous.

Sign up to The Spin

Who knows, it might all go smoothly for this new attack. It might not work out. What is notable is how rapidly Australia have moved from the surety of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, mumble mumble. It's unclear what new injuries the first Test may bring. Who knows whether Cummins will be fit for the Brisbane Test, and able to continue after that match, given how complicated stress injuries can be. Who knows how long Hazlewood might be sidelined, with a track record of getting injured early in tournaments and a history of initially small injuries becoming longer layoffs.

Future Unclear

The back half of the series may witness the primary four bowlers reunited and all performing well. Or it might experience transition setting in much earlier than the stretch goal 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 options unclear. Sean Abbott was in the initial squad, though he’s now also hurt and has not yet played a Test match. Richardson has just had his injury-prone arm put back on, and this level is not the place for easing into one’s work. Beyond them lies the true uncertainty, and amid it all a chance for the opposing side. You can sense that train approaching, rolling round the corner, and the English team hasn't seen the success since they can't recall when.