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The Ashes may offer one cause for celebration, but this contest will also see the Aussie side host a greater number of birthdays than Timezone in the nineties. New boy Jake Weatherald celebrated his thirty-first birthday a day prior to the team was named. Nathan Lyon celebrates 38 the day before 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 becomes 35 on the fifth day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 by the time January is over.

Ageing Squad Fascination Builds

For two or three years there has been growing fascination with the average age of this side and especially the bowling unit. It is unusual to have almost every player in a Test team being above thirty, aside from novelty-sized mascot Cameron Green and custody-weekend visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that older age was a disadvantage: a Test team featuring a four-bowler lineup with 1,568 wickets between them is hardly a disadvantage, and it stands to reason that all of those bowlers are well into their careers.

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Perhaps what most amplified the talking point is that the backup bowlers over that period, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also well into their 30s. Emerging pacemen have briefly joined teams – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before vanishing for years with injury, meaning there has been no obvious replacement plan.

Change Forced by Setbacks

So far, that hasn’t mattered, as the Big Four plus Boland have kept on backing up. Any side knows that having a group of similarly-aged players might mean a batch of simultaneous departures, but so far change has remained theoretical: a process that would certainly be arriving the bend when she comes, but one that hadn’t yet steamed into view.

Now, abruptly, change is here, forced upon this Aussie team in the space of a few weeks. The spinal issue to Pat Cummins was greeted with equanimity: he would probably only sit out the opening match, was the team management view, and as the first bowling change behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could easily be replaced by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has gone down with a hamstring injury, the balance experiences a far greater shift with two players missing 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 speed and movement to be used more as a weapon of attack. Missing both of them means a fundamental shift in the composition of the team. Boland taking the new ball is not unusual in his first-class career, but he has been so effective in Test matches entering the attack after seven to eight overs of early pressure. Now he’ll likely have to be the man up front.

Debutant Confronts 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, partly English, for the opening 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 nervous.

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Who knows, it might all go swimmingly for this new attack. It might not work out. What is notable is how rapidly Australia have moved from the surety of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the uncertainty of Starc, Lyon, and others. Who knows what new injuries the opening match may cause. It's unknown whether Cummins will be good to go for the Brisbane Test, and good to back up after that match, given how complicated stress fractures can be. Who knows how long Hazlewood might be sidelined, with a history of going down early in tournaments and a history of initially small injuries turning into longer layoffs.

Outlook Uncertain

The back half of the contest may witness the main four bowlers back together and all going well. Or it might see transition beginning much earlier than the long-term aim of 2027 in England. Not through Neser, who is apparently next in line and could be a great pink-ball Brisbane choice, but after that with options unclear. Sean Abbott was in the original team, though he’s now also injured and has never played a Test. Richardson has just had his crash-test-dummy arm repaired, and this format is no place for gradually starting one’s work. After them lies the true uncertainty, and amid it all opportunity for the opposing side. You can hear that train approaching, rolling round the bend, and the English team hasn't seen the success since they don’t know when.