🔗 Share this article Australia Enter Ashes Campaign with Transition Abruptly Imposed on an Older Team The historic Ashes series could provide one cause for celebration, but this contest will also witness the Aussie side celebrate a greater number of birthdays than an arcade in the 90s. New boy Jake Weatherald celebrated his 31st a day before the squad was announced. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day preceding the Perth Test. Beau Webster turns 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 over. Older Squad Fascination Builds For two or three years there has been mounting curiosity with the average age of this team and particularly 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 custody-weekend visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that greater age was a disadvantage: 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 | Mark Ramprakash Perhaps what really highlighted the discussion is that the reserve players over that period, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also deep into their 30s. Emerging pacemen have floated into squads – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before disappearing for years with injuries, meaning there has been no obvious replacement plan. Transition 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 batch of similarly-timed retirements, but so far transition has remained hypothetical: a process that would indeed be coming round the mountain when she comes, but one that hadn’t yet steamed into view. Now, abruptly, change is here, forced upon this Australian squad in the space of a short period. The spinal issue to Pat Cummins was greeted with equanimity: he would probably only miss the first Test, was the Cricket Australia view, and as the first bowling change behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could comfortably be replaced by Boland. Mitchell Starc and Brendan Doggett during a training session in Western Australia in the preparation to the first Test. Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP But now that Hazlewood has been sidelined with a hamstring injury, the team 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 attacking option. Losing both of them means a major adjustment in the balance of the side. Boland taking the new ball is nothing new in his domestic career, but he has been so successful in Tests entering the attack after seven or eight overs of initial onslaught. Now he’ll likely have to be the opening bowler. Debutant Faces Pressure Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at 31 years old 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 first Test of a deliriously anticipated Ashes series will not make for an easy debut, 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. Register to our cricket newsletter It's uncertain, it might all go swimmingly for this revamped bowling lineup. It might not work out. What is striking is how quickly Australia have moved from the certainty of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, and others. It's unclear what new injuries the opening match may cause. 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 track record of going down early in series and a pattern of initially small injuries turning into extended absences. Outlook Unclear The latter part of the contest may see the primary four bowlers back together and all going well. Or it might experience transition beginning much sooner than the stretch goal of 2027 in the UK. Not through Neser, who is apparently next in line and could be a great pink-ball Brisbane choice, but after that with choices unclear. Sean Abbott was in the initial squad, though he’s now also injured and has never played a Test match. 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 true uncertainty, and amid it all a chance for the visiting team. You can hear that change a-coming, rolling round the bend, and the English team ain’t seen the sunshine since they can't recall when.