The historic Ashes series may offer one cause for celebration, but this series will also see the Australian team host more birthday parties than an arcade in the nineties. Recent addition Jake Weatherald celebrated his thirty-first birthday a day before the team was named. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day preceding the Perth Test. Beau Webster turns 32 just before Brisbane, 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 before January is over.
For a couple of years there has been mounting fascination with the age of this team and especially the bowling attack. It is unusual to have almost every player in a Test team being over 30, aside from novelty-sized mascot Cameron Green and occasional visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that older age was a disadvantage: a Test squad boasting a four-man attack with over 1,500 wickets between them is hardly a disadvantage, and it makes sense that all of those bowlers are well into their professional lives.
I've never felt this sure at the start of an away Ashes series | a former player
Perhaps what most amplified the discussion is that the backup bowlers over that period, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also deep into their thirties. Younger bowlers have briefly joined teams – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before vanishing for years with injuries, meaning there has been no obvious replacement plan.
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 group of same-generation players might mean a group of similarly-timed departures, but so far transition has remained hypothetical: a process that would certainly be arriving the mountain when she comes, but one that had not steamed into view.
Now, abruptly, change is upon them, imposed on this Australian squad in the space of a short period. The back injury to Pat Cummins was greeted with equanimity: he would probably only sit out the opening match, was the Cricket Australia assessment, and as the first-change bowler behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could comfortably be covered for by Boland.
But now that Hazlewood has been sidelined with a hamstring injury, the balance undergoes 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 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 team. Boland taking the new ball is nothing new in his domestic career, but he has been so successful in Tests entering the attack after seven or eight overs of initial onslaught. Now he’ll probably have to be the man up front.
Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at 31 years old himself isn't an intimidated youngster, but he might become an overawed 31-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 field on a banana lounge and still be nervous.
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Who knows, it might all go swimmingly for this new attack. It might not. What is striking is how rapidly 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. It's unknown whether Cummins will be fit for the Brisbane Test, and good to back up after that match, given how tricky stress injuries can be. It's uncertain how long Hazlewood might be sidelined, with a track record of going down early in series and a pattern of initially small injuries turning into longer layoffs.
The latter part of the series may see the primary four bowlers back together and all going well. Or it might see transition beginning much earlier than the long-term aim of 2027 in the UK. Not through Neser, who is seemingly the next option and could be a great pink-ball Brisbane option, but beyond that with choices unclear. Sean Abbott was in the original team, though he’s now also injured 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 gradually starting one’s work. Beyond them lies the real unknown, and amid it all a chance for the visiting team. You can sense that train a-coming, rolling round the bend, and the English team ain’t seen the success since they don’t know when.
Elara is a seasoned gaming journalist with a passion for slot mechanics and player strategies.
