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The historic Ashes series may offer one cause for celebration, but this contest will also see the Aussie side host a greater number of birthdays than Timezone in the 90s. Recent addition Jake Weatherald celebrated his thirty-first birthday a day prior to the team was named. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day preceding the Perth Test. Beau Webster reaches 32 just before the Brisbane match, 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 before January is out.

Ageing Squad Interest Grows

For two or three years there has been growing fascination with the age of this side and particularly the bowling unit. It is unusual to have nearly all player in a Test team being over 30, except for young mascot Cameron Green and custody-weekend visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that greater age was a disadvantage: a Test team boasting a four-bowler lineup with over 1,500 wickets between them is hardly a disadvantage, and it makes sense that all of those bowlers are deep into their professional lives.

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

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 30s. Younger bowlers have briefly joined squads – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before disappearing for years with injury, meaning there has been no obvious replacement plan.

Transition Forced by Injuries

So far, that hasn’t mattered, as the core four plus Boland have kept on backing up. Any side knows that having a batch of similarly-aged players might mean a group of similarly-timed retirements, but so far transition has remained theoretical: a train that would certainly be coming round the bend when she comes, but one that had not steamed into view.

Now, suddenly, change is upon them, imposed on this Australian squad in the span of a short period. The back injury to Pat Cummins was greeted with equanimity: he would likely only miss the opening match, was the Cricket Australia view, and as the first-change bowler behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could comfortably be replaced by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has been sidelined with a hamstring strain, the balance undergoes a much more significant change with two key bowlers missing rather than a single one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two tight-line right-armers give the balance and control that allows Starc’s left-arm pace and swing to be used more as a weapon of attack. Missing both of them means a fundamental shift in the composition of the team. Boland handling the new ball is not unusual in his first-class 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 man up front.

Newcomer Faces 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 opening Test of a eagerly awaited Ashes series will not make for an easy debut, no matter how many newspaper profiles describe him as laid-back. He could be wheeled onto the field on a banana lounge and still be anxious.

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Who knows, it might all go swimmingly for this revamped bowling lineup. It might not. What is striking is how quickly Australia have moved from the surety of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, mumble mumble. It's unclear what new injuries the opening match may cause. Who knows whether Cummins will be good to go for the Brisbane Test, and able to continue after that match, given how complicated stress fractures can be. Who knows how long Hazlewood might be sidelined, 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 witness the main four bowlers reunited and all going well. Or it might experience transition setting in much sooner than the long-term aim of 2027 in England. Not through Neser, who is seemingly next in line and could be a great day-night Brisbane choice, but beyond 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 repaired, and this level is not the place for gradually starting one’s work. After them lies the real unknown, and amid it all a chance for the opposing side. You can hear that train a-coming, rolling round the corner, and the English team ain’t seen the sunshine since they don’t know when.