The Australian Team Begin Ashes Series with Change Suddenly Imposed on an Ageing Team

The historic Ashes series may offer one cause for celebration, but this contest will also witness the Aussie side host a greater number of birthdays than Timezone in the nineties. New boy Jake Weatherald had his thirty-first birthday a day prior to the squad was announced. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day preceding the Perth Test. Beau Webster reaches 32 just before Brisbane, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on the second day in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood becomes 35 on the fifth day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 before January is over.

Ageing Team Fascination Builds

For two or three years there has been mounting fascination with the average age of this team and especially the bowling unit. It is rare to have nearly all player in a Test side being over 30, aside from novelty-sized mascot Cameron Green and custody-weekend visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that greater age was a problem: a Test squad boasting a four-man attack with 1,568 wickets between them is hardly a weakness, and it makes sense that all of those bowlers are well into their careers.

I can’t remember ever being so confident at the start of an away Ashes series | a former player

Perhaps what really highlighted 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 briefly joined squads – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before vanishing for years with injury, 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 team knows that having a group of same-generation players might mean a group of similarly-timed departures, but so far change has remained theoretical: a process that would certainly be arriving the bend when she comes, but one that had not steamed into view.

Now, suddenly, change is here, forced upon this Australian squad in the span of a few weeks. The back injury to Pat Cummins was taken in stride: he would likely only sit out the first Test, was the team management assessment, 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 injury, the team balance undergoes a far greater shift with two key bowlers absent rather than one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two accurate right-arm bowlers give the balance and control that enables Starc’s left-arm pace and swing to be used more as a weapon of attack. Missing both of them means a major adjustment in the balance of the side. Boland handling the new ball is not unusual in his domestic career, but he has been so successful in Tests entering the attack after seven or eight overs of early pressure. Now he’ll probably have to be the man up front.

Debutant Faces Pressure

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at 31 years old himself isn't an overawed youth, but he might become an overawed 31-year-old. A full stadium crowd, half of it English, for the first Test of a eagerly awaited Ashes series will not make for an simple first match, no matter how many newspaper profiles describe him as laid-back. He could be brought onto the field on a banana lounge and still be anxious.

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It's uncertain, it might all go swimmingly for this new attack. It might not. What is notable is how rapidly Australia have transitioned from the certainty of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the uncertainty of Starc, Lyon, and others. Who knows what further injuries the opening match may cause. It's unknown whether Cummins will be fit for the Brisbane Test, and able to continue after that match, given how complicated stress injuries can be. It's uncertain how long Hazlewood might be sidelined, with a history of getting injured early in series and a history of initially small injuries turning into extended absences.

Future Unclear

The latter part of the contest may see the primary four bowlers reunited and all going well. Or it might experience transition setting in much sooner than the long-term aim of 2027 in England. Not through Neser, who is apparently the next option and could be a excellent pink-ball Brisbane option, but after that with choices unclear. Sean Abbott was in the initial squad, though he’s now also hurt and has not yet played a Test. Richardson has just had his crash-test-dummy arm repaired, and this level is no 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 hear that change a-coming, rolling round the bend, and England ain’t seen the sunshine since they don’t know when.