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The Ashes may offer one cause for celebration, but this series will also see the Australian team celebrate more birthday parties than Timezone in the nineties. New boy Jake Weatherald celebrated his thirty-first birthday a day before the squad was named. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day preceding the Test in Perth. Beau Webster turns 32 just ahead of the Brisbane match, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on the second day in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood turns 35 on the fifth day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 by the time January is over.

Older Squad Fascination Builds

For two or three years there has been growing curiosity with the average age of this side and especially the bowling attack. It is rare to have almost every player near a Test team being above thirty, aside from novelty-sized mascot Cameron Green and occasional visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that greater age was a disadvantage: a Test team featuring a four-man attack with over 1,500 wickets between them is scarcely a disadvantage, and it stands to reason that all of those bowlers are deep into their professional lives.

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Perhaps what really highlighted the talking point is that the backup bowlers over that time, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also deep into their thirties. Younger bowlers have briefly joined 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 Big Four plus Boland have continued performing. Any team knows that having a batch of similarly-aged players might mean a group of simultaneous departures, but so far change has remained hypothetical: a process that would certainly be coming round the bend when she comes, but one that had not steamed into view.

Now, abruptly, transition is upon them, forced upon this Australian squad in the space of a few weeks. The back injury to Pat Cummins was taken in stride: he would probably only miss the opening match, was the team management view, and as the first bowling change behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could easily be covered for by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has gone down with a hamstring strain, the balance experiences a far greater change with two key bowlers absent rather than a single one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two tight-line right-armers give the stability and precision 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 nothing new in his first-class career, but he has been so effective in Test matches coming on after seven to eight overs of initial onslaught. Now he’ll likely have to be the opening bowler.

Debutant Faces Expectations

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at thirty-one years of age himself isn't 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 deliriously anticipated Ashes series will not make for an simple first match, no matter how many newspaper profiles describe him as laid-back. He could be brought onto the field on a banana lounge and still be anxious.

Register to The Spin

It's uncertain, it might all go swimmingly for this revamped bowling lineup. It might not work out. What is notable is how quickly 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 cause. Who knows whether Cummins will be fit for Brisbane, and good to back up after Brisbane, given how tricky stress injuries 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 initially small injuries becoming extended absences.

Future Uncertain

The back half of the series may see the primary four bowlers reunited and all performing well. Or it might see transition beginning much earlier than the stretch goal of 2027 in England. Not through Neser, who is seemingly next in line and could be a excellent pink-ball Brisbane option, but beyond that with options unclear. 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 level is not the place for gradually starting one’s work. After them lies the real unknown, and throughout it a chance for the opposing side. You can sense that change approaching, rolling round the bend, and the English team ain’t seen the success since they don’t know when.