The Ashes may offer one cause for celebration, but this series will also see the Australian team host more birthday parties than Timezone in the 90s. New boy Jake Weatherald had his 31st a day before the squad was announced. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day before the Perth Test. Beau Webster turns 32 just before 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 out.
For two or three 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 near a Test side being over 30, aside from novelty-sized mascot Cameron Green and custody-weekend visitor Sam Konstas. But it didn’t logically follow that greater age was a problem: a Test team boasting a four-man attack with 1,568 wickets between them is hardly a disadvantage, and it stands to reason that all of those bowlers are deep into their careers.
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 30s. Younger bowlers have floated into squads – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before disappearing for years with injury, meaning there has been no clear line of succession.
So far, that hasn’t mattered, as the Big 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 retirements, but so far transition has remained theoretical: a train that would indeed be coming round the mountain when she comes, but one that hadn’t yet steamed into view.
Now, abruptly, transition is here, forced upon this Australian squad in the space of a few weeks. The back injury to Pat Cummins was greeted with equanimity: he would probably only miss the first Test, was the Cricket Australia view, and as the first-change bowler behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could comfortably be covered for by Boland.
But now that Hazlewood has gone down with a hamstring strain, the balance undergoes a far greater shift with two players missing rather than one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two tight-line right-armers give the balance and control that allows Starc’s left-arm pace and swing to be used more as a weapon of attack. Losing both of them means a fundamental shift in the balance of the team. Boland taking the new ball is nothing new in his first-class career, but he has been so effective in Tests coming on after seven or eight overs of initial onslaught. Now he’ll likely have to be the man up front.
Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at 31 years old himself won’t be an overawed youth, but he might become an overawed 31-year-old. A full stadium crowd, half of it English, for the opening Test of a deliriously anticipated Ashes series will not make for an easy debut, no matter how many newspaper profiles describe him as laid-back. He could be wheeled on to the ground on a banana lounge and still be nervous.
Who knows, it might all go swimmingly for this new attack. It might not. What is notable is how quickly Australia have moved from the surety of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, mumble mumble. Who knows what new injuries the first Test may bring. Who knows whether Cummins will be good to go for Brisbane, and good to back up after Brisbane, given how tricky stress fractures can be. Who knows how long Hazlewood might be out, with a history of going down early in series and a history of initially small injuries becoming longer layoffs.
The back half of the series may see the primary four bowlers reunited and all going well. Or it might see transition setting in much sooner than the stretch goal of 2027 in England. Not through Neser, who is seemingly next in line and could be a great pink-ball Brisbane option, but beyond that with choices unclear. Sean Abbott was in the initial squad, though he’s now also injured and has never played a Test. Richardson has just had his crash-test-dummy arm put back on, and this format is no place for easing into one’s work. Beyond them lies the real unknown, and throughout it opportunity for the visiting team. You can hear that train a-coming, rolling round the bend, and England ain’t seen the sunshine since they don’t know when.
