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The historic Ashes series may offer one cause for celebration, but this contest will also witness the Australian team celebrate a greater number of birthdays than an arcade in the nineties. New boy Jake Weatherald had his thirty-first birthday a day prior to the team was announced. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day before the Test in Perth. Beau Webster reaches 32 just before Brisbane, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on day two in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood turns 35 on the final day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 before January is out.

Ageing Squad Fascination Grows

For a couple of years there has been growing fascination with the average age of this team and especially the bowling attack. It is unusual to have almost every player in a Test side being above thirty, except for young 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 scarcely a weakness, and it makes sense that all of those bowlers are well into their professional lives.

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Perhaps what really highlighted the discussion is that the backup bowlers over that time, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also deep into their thirties. Emerging pacemen have briefly joined teams – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before vanishing for years with injuries, meaning there has been no clear line of succession.

Transition Forced by Injuries

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

Now, abruptly, change is upon them, 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 opening match, was the Cricket Australia assessment, and as the first-change bowler behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could easily be replaced by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has been sidelined with a hamstring strain, the balance undergoes a much more significant shift with two key bowlers absent rather than a single one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two accurate right-arm bowlers give the balance and control that allows Starc’s left-arm pace and swing to be used more as a attacking option. Losing both of them means a fundamental shift in the balance of the side. Boland taking the new ball is not unusual in his first-class career, but he has been so effective in Tests coming on after seven to eight overs of initial onslaught. Now he’ll likely have to be the opening bowler.

Newcomer Confronts Pressure

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at thirty-one years of age himself won’t be an intimidated youngster, but he might become an nervous thirty-one-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 media stories describe 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 swimmingly for this revamped bowling lineup. It might not work out. What is striking is how rapidly Australia have moved from the surety of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, mumble mumble. Who knows what further injuries the opening match may bring. Who knows whether Cummins will be good to go for Brisbane, and good to back up after that match, given how complicated stress fractures can be. It's uncertain how long Hazlewood might be out, with a track record of going down early in series and a pattern of minor injuries becoming longer layoffs.

Outlook Uncertain

The back half of the contest may see the primary four bowlers back together and all performing well. Or it might see transition setting in much sooner than the stretch goal of 2027 in the UK. Not through Neser, who is seemingly next in line and could be a excellent pink-ball Brisbane option, but after that with choices uncertain. 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 repaired, and this level is not the place for easing into one’s work. After them lies the true uncertainty, and throughout it opportunity for the opposing side. You can hear that train approaching, coming around the bend, and the English team ain’t seen the success since they can't recall when.