The Australian Team Enter Ashes Series with Change Abruptly Forced Upon an Ageing Squad

The historic Ashes series may offer a reason to cheer, but this contest will also witness the Australian team celebrate more birthday parties than Timezone in the 90s. New boy Jake Weatherald celebrated his thirty-first birthday a day prior to the squad was named. Nathan Lyon celebrates 38 the day preceding the Perth Test. Beau Webster turns 32 just ahead of the Brisbane match, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on day two in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood becomes 35 on the final day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 before January is over.

Ageing Team Interest Grows

For two or three years there has been mounting fascination with the average age of this side and particularly the bowling unit. It is unusual to have almost every player near a Test side being above thirty, aside from young 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 scarcely a weakness, and it stands to reason that all of those bowlers are well into their careers.

I can’t remember ever being so confident at the beginning of an Ashes tour | a former player

Perhaps what really highlighted the discussion is that the reserve players over that period, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also well into their 30s. Younger bowlers have floated into teams – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before disappearing for years with injury, meaning there has been no clear line of succession.

Change Forced by Setbacks

So far, that hasn’t mattered, as the core four plus Boland have kept on backing up. Any side knows that having a group of same-generation players might mean a batch of similarly-timed retirements, but so far transition has remained hypothetical: a process that would certainly be arriving the bend when she comes, but one that hadn’t yet become visible.

Now, suddenly, change is here, imposed on this Aussie team in the span of a short period. The back injury to Pat Cummins was greeted with equanimity: he would probably only miss the opening match, was the team management view, and as the first-change bowler behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could easily be replaced by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has gone down with a hamstring strain, the team balance undergoes a much more significant shift with two key bowlers absent rather than a single 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 attacking option. Missing both of them means a fundamental shift in the balance of the side. Boland handling the new ball is not unusual in his first-class career, but he has been so successful in Test matches coming on after seven or eight overs of initial onslaught. Now he’ll likely have to be the man up front.

Newcomer Faces Pressure

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at 31 years old himself won’t be an intimidated youngster, but he might become an overawed 31-year-old. A packed stadium, 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 brought onto the ground 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 work out. What is striking is how rapidly Australia have transitioned from the certainty of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the uncertainty of Starc, Lyon, mumble mumble. Who knows 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 complicated stress injuries can be. It's uncertain how long Hazlewood might be sidelined, with a history of going down early in tournaments and a history of minor injuries becoming longer layoffs.

Future Uncertain

The latter part of the contest may witness the primary four bowlers reunited and all going well. Or it might see transition setting in much earlier than the long-term aim of 2027 in England. Not through Neser, who is seemingly the next option and could be a great pink-ball Brisbane option, but after that with options 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 format is not the place for gradually starting one’s work. After them lies the true uncertainty, and throughout it opportunity for the opposing side. You can sense that train a-coming, rolling round the bend, and the English team hasn't seen the sunshine since they can't recall when.