🔗 Share this article The Australian Team Begin Ashes Campaign with Change Abruptly Forced Upon an Older Squad The Ashes could provide one cause for celebration, but this series will also see the Aussie side celebrate a greater number of birthdays than Timezone in the nineties. Recent addition Jake Weatherald had his 31st a day before the team was named. Nathan Lyon celebrates 38 the day before 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 final day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 before January is out. Older Team Fascination Builds For two or three years there has been growing curiosity with the age of this team and particularly the bowling unit. It is unusual to have nearly all player near a Test side being above thirty, aside from young mascot Cameron Green and custody-weekend visitor Sam Konstas. But it didn’t logically follow that greater age was a problem: a Test squad featuring a four-bowler lineup with over 1,500 wickets between them is hardly a weakness, and it makes sense that all of those bowlers are deep into their careers. I've never felt this sure at the start of an Ashes tour | a former player Perhaps what really highlighted the talking point is that the reserve players over that time, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also deep into their 30s. Emerging pacemen have briefly joined squads – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before disappearing for years with injury, meaning there has been no obvious replacement plan. Change Forced by Setbacks So far, that hasn't been an issue, as the Big Four plus Boland have continued backing up. Any team knows that having a group of same-generation players might mean a batch of similarly-timed departures, but so far change has remained hypothetical: a train that would indeed be arriving the mountain when she comes, but one that had not become visible. Now, suddenly, transition is here, imposed on this Australian squad in the span of a short period. The back injury to Pat Cummins was taken in stride: he would likely only sit out the opening match, was the team management view, and as the first-change bowler behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could comfortably be replaced by Boland. Brendan Doggett (left) and Mitchell Starc during a net session in Perth in the build up to the first Test. Photograph: AAP But now that Hazlewood has been sidelined with a hamstring strain, the balance undergoes a far greater change with two players missing rather than one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two tight-line right-armers give the stability and precision that allows Starc’s left-arm speed and movement to be used more as a attacking option. Missing both of them means a major adjustment in the composition of the team. Boland handling the new ball is not unusual in his domestic career, but he has been so successful in Tests coming on after seven to eight overs of early pressure. Now he’ll probably have to be the man up front. 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 packed stadium, half of it English, for the first Test of a eagerly awaited 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 sun lounger and still be nervous. Sign up to The Spin Who knows, it might all go smoothly for this new attack. It might not. What is notable is how quickly Australia have moved from the certainty of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the uncertainty of Starc, Lyon, mumble mumble. Who knows what new injuries the opening match may bring. Who knows whether Cummins will be fit for Brisbane, and able to continue after Brisbane, given how tricky stress fractures can be. Who knows how long Hazlewood might be out, with a history of going down early in series and a history of initially small injuries turning into longer layoffs. Outlook Unclear The latter part of the series may see the main four bowlers reunited and all performing well. Or it might experience 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 pink-ball Brisbane choice, but after that with choices uncertain. Sean Abbott was in the initial squad, though he’s now also hurt and has never played a Test. Richardson has just had his injury-prone arm put back on, and this format is no place for gradually starting one’s work. After them lies the real unknown, and throughout it opportunity for the visiting team. You can hear that train approaching, rolling round the bend, and the English team ain’t seen the success since they don’t know when.