The Australian Team Begin Ashes Campaign with Change Suddenly Forced Upon an Ageing Team

The Ashes may offer a reason to cheer, but this contest will also witness the Aussie side celebrate a greater number of birthdays than an arcade in the nineties. Recent addition Jake Weatherald celebrated his thirty-first birthday a day prior to the squad was named. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day preceding the Test in Perth. Beau Webster reaches 32 just before the Brisbane match, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on the second day in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood turns 35 on the final day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 by the time January is over.

Ageing Team Interest Grows

For a couple of years there has been growing curiosity with the age of this side and particularly the bowling unit. It is unusual 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 wasn't necessarily true that greater age was a problem: a Test team featuring a four-bowler lineup with 1,568 wickets between them is scarcely a weakness, and it makes sense that all of those bowlers are deep into their professional lives.

I've never felt this sure at the beginning of an Ashes tour | a former player

Perhaps what most amplified the talking point is that the backup bowlers 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 vanishing for years with injury, meaning there has been no clear line of succession.

Change Imposed by Injuries

So far, that hasn't been an issue, as the core four plus Boland have kept on performing. Any team knows that having a group of same-generation players might mean a group of simultaneous departures, but so far transition has remained hypothetical: a process that would certainly be arriving the mountain when she comes, but one that hadn’t yet steamed into view.

Now, abruptly, change 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 miss the first Test, was the Cricket Australia assessment, and as the first bowling change behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could comfortably be covered for by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has gone down with a hamstring injury, the team balance undergoes a much more significant change with two players absent rather than a single one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two accurate right-arm bowlers give the stability and precision that enables Starc’s left-arm speed and movement to be used more as a attacking option. Losing both of them means a major adjustment in the composition of the team. Boland handling the new ball is nothing new in his domestic career, but he has been so successful in Test matches entering the attack after seven or eight overs of initial onslaught. Now he’ll probably have to be the opening bowler.

Debutant Faces Pressure

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at thirty-one years of age himself won’t be an overawed youth, 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 simple first match, no matter how many newspaper profiles portray him as laid-back. He could be wheeled onto the field on a banana lounge and still be nervous.

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It's uncertain, it might all go smoothly for this new attack. It might not work out. What is striking is how rapidly Australia have moved from the certainty of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, and others. Who knows what further injuries the opening match may cause. It's unknown whether Cummins will be good to go for Brisbane, and able to continue after that match, 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 pattern of minor injuries turning into extended absences.

Future Uncertain

The back half of the contest may see the main four bowlers back together and all going well. Or it might experience transition beginning much sooner than the long-term aim of 2027 in the UK. Not through Neser, who is apparently next in line and could be a great pink-ball Brisbane choice, but after that with choices unclear. Sean Abbott was in the original team, though he’s now also injured and has not yet played a Test match. Richardson has just had his crash-test-dummy arm put back on, and this level is no place for gradually starting one’s work. Beyond them lies the true uncertainty, and amid it all a chance for the opposing side. You can sense that change a-coming, rolling round the corner, and the English team ain’t seen the success since they can't recall when.