🔗 Share this article

The historic Ashes series could provide one cause for celebration, but this series will also see the Australian team celebrate more birthday parties than Timezone in the nineties. Recent addition Jake Weatherald had his thirty-first birthday a day prior to the team was named. Nathan Lyon celebrates 38 the day preceding the Test in Perth. Beau Webster turns 32 just before the Brisbane match, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on the second day in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood turns 35 on the fifth day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 by the time January is over.

Ageing Team Fascination Builds

For two or three years there has been mounting fascination with the age of this side and particularly the bowling unit. It is rare to have almost every player near a Test side being over 30, aside from novelty-sized mascot Cameron Green and occasional visitor Sam Konstas. But it didn’t logically follow that older age was a disadvantage: a Test team boasting a four-bowler lineup with over 1,500 wickets between them is scarcely a weakness, and it stands to reason 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 | Mark Ramprakash

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

Change Forced by Injuries

So far, that hasn't been an issue, as the Big Four plus Boland have kept on backing up. Any side knows that having a batch of same-generation players might mean a group of simultaneous departures, but so far change has remained theoretical: a process that would indeed be arriving the mountain when she comes, but one that had not become visible.

Now, abruptly, transition is here, forced upon this Aussie team in the span of a few weeks. The back injury to Pat Cummins was taken in stride: he would likely only sit out the opening match, was the Cricket Australia assessment, and as the first-change bowler behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could easily be covered for by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has gone down with a hamstring strain, the team balance experiences a far greater shift with two players missing rather than a single one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two accurate right-arm bowlers give the stability and precision that allows Starc’s left-arm pace and swing to be used more as a weapon of attack. Losing both of them means a major adjustment in the balance of the team. Boland handling the new ball is nothing new in his first-class career, but he has been so successful in Tests coming on after seven or eight overs of initial onslaught. Now he’ll likely have to be the man up front.

Newcomer Faces Expectations

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 full stadium crowd, half of it English, for the first Test of a deliriously anticipated Ashes series will not make for an easy debut, no matter how many media stories portray him as laid-back. He could be wheeled onto the field on a sun lounger and still be anxious.

Sign up to our cricket newsletter

Who knows, it might all go smoothly for this revamped bowling lineup. It might not work out. What is notable is how rapidly Australia have moved from the certainty of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the uncertainty of Starc, Lyon, mumble mumble. Who knows what further injuries the opening match may bring. Who knows whether Cummins will be fit for the Brisbane Test, and able to continue after Brisbane, given how complicated stress injuries can be. Who knows how long Hazlewood might be sidelined, with a track record of getting injured early in series and a pattern of minor injuries becoming longer layoffs.

Future Uncertain

The latter part of the contest may see 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 the UK. Not through Neser, who is apparently the next option and could be a excellent pink-ball Brisbane option, but after that with options unclear. 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 repaired, and this level is no place for easing into one’s work. After them lies the real unknown, and amid it all opportunity for the opposing side. You can sense that train approaching, rolling round the bend, and the English team hasn't seen the sunshine since they can't recall when.