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The historic Ashes series may offer a reason to cheer, but this series will also see the Australian team 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 named. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day before the Test in Perth. Beau Webster reaches 32 just ahead of Brisbane, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on the second day in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood turns 35 on the final day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 before January is out.

Older Squad Fascination Builds

For two or three years there has been growing curiosity with the age of this team and especially the bowling unit. It is rare to have nearly all player near a Test team being above thirty, except for young mascot Cameron Green and occasional visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that greater age was a disadvantage: a Test squad boasting a four-bowler lineup with 1,568 wickets between them is scarcely a disadvantage, and it makes sense that all of those bowlers are well into their careers.

I've never felt this sure at the start of an Ashes tour | a former player

Perhaps what really highlighted the discussion is that the reserve players over that time, 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 injuries, meaning there has been no obvious replacement plan.

Change 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 similarly-aged players might mean a batch of similarly-timed retirements, but so far transition has remained hypothetical: a process that would indeed be arriving the bend when she comes, but one that hadn’t yet steamed into view.

Now, suddenly, transition 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 Cricket Australia assessment, and as the first-change bowler behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could easily be covered for by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has gone down with a hamstring injury, the balance undergoes a much more significant shift with two players missing rather than one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two accurate right-arm bowlers give the stability and precision 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 balance of the team. Boland taking the new ball is nothing new in his first-class career, but he has been so effective in Test matches entering the attack after seven or eight overs of initial onslaught. Now he’ll probably have to be the man up front.

Newcomer Faces Pressure

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at thirty-one years of age himself isn't 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 eagerly awaited Ashes series will not make for an simple first match, no matter how many newspaper profiles portray him as laid-back. He could be wheeled onto the ground on a sun lounger and still be anxious.

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Who knows, it might all go swimmingly for this new attack. It might not. What is notable is how rapidly Australia have transitioned from the surety of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, and others. Who knows what new injuries the first Test may bring. Who knows whether Cummins will be good to go for the Brisbane Test, and able to continue after that match, given how complicated stress injuries 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 becoming extended absences.

Outlook Unclear

The latter part of the series may see the primary four bowlers reunited and all going well. Or it might see transition setting in much earlier than the stretch goal of 2027 in the UK. Not through Neser, who is seemingly the next option and could be a great day-night Brisbane choice, but beyond that with choices 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 injury-prone arm put back on, and this format is no place for easing into one’s work. After them lies the real unknown, and amid it all opportunity for the visiting team. You can hear that train approaching, coming around the bend, and the English team hasn't seen the sunshine since they don’t know when.