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The Ashes may offer one cause for celebration, but this contest will also witness the Australian team celebrate more birthday parties than Timezone in the nineties. New boy Jake Weatherald had his thirty-first birthday a day before the team was announced. Nathan Lyon celebrates 38 the day preceding the Test in Perth. Beau Webster reaches 32 just ahead of Brisbane, 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 by the time January is out.

Ageing Squad Interest Grows

For a couple of years there has been mounting fascination with the age of this side and especially the bowling unit. It is unusual to have almost every player in a Test side being over 30, except for young mascot Cameron Green and custody-weekend visitor Sam Konstas. But it didn’t logically follow that older age was a disadvantage: a Test squad boasting 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 discussion is that the reserve players over that period, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also well into their thirties. Younger bowlers have floated into squads – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before disappearing for years with injury, meaning there has been no clear line of succession.

Transition Forced by Setbacks

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 group of simultaneous retirements, but so far change has remained hypothetical: a train that would indeed be coming round the mountain when she comes, but one that had not steamed into view.

Now, abruptly, change is here, forced upon this Aussie team in the space of a short period. The back injury to Pat Cummins was taken in stride: he would probably only miss the opening match, was the team management 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 far greater shift with two key bowlers missing rather than one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two tight-line right-armers 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 fundamental shift in the composition of the team. Boland handling the new ball is nothing new in his domestic career, but he has been so effective in Tests coming on after seven or eight overs of early pressure. Now he’ll probably have to be the opening bowler.

Newcomer 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 opening Test of a eagerly awaited Ashes series will not make for an easy debut, no matter how many media stories describe him as relaxed. He could be wheeled onto the ground on a sun lounger and still be nervous.

Register to The Spin

It's uncertain, it might all go smoothly for this revamped bowling lineup. It might not work out. What is striking is how quickly Australia have moved from the surety of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, and others. Who knows what further injuries the first Test may cause. It's unknown whether Cummins will be good to go for the Brisbane Test, and able to continue after Brisbane, given how tricky stress fractures can be. Who knows how long Hazlewood might be sidelined, with a track record of going down early in series and a history of initially small injuries turning into extended absences.

Future Unclear

The back half of the contest may see the primary four bowlers back together and all performing well. Or it might see transition beginning much earlier than the stretch goal of 2027 in the UK. Not through Neser, who is seemingly the next option and could be a excellent pink-ball Brisbane option, but after that with choices uncertain. Sean Abbott was in the original team, though he’s now also injured and has never played a Test match. Richardson has just had his crash-test-dummy arm repaired, and this format is not the place for gradually starting one’s work. After them lies the true uncertainty, and throughout it a chance for the visiting team. You can hear that change approaching, coming around the bend, and the English team hasn't seen the sunshine since they can't recall when.