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The historic Ashes series could provide a reason to cheer, but this series will also witness the Australian team celebrate more birthday parties than Timezone in the nineties. New boy Jake Weatherald had his 31st a day before the team was named. Nathan Lyon celebrates 38 the day preceding the Perth Test. Beau Webster turns 32 just ahead of the Brisbane match, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on day two in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood becomes 35 on the fifth day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 before January is over.

Ageing Team Interest Grows

For a couple of years there has been growing curiosity with the age of this team and especially the bowling attack. It is rare to have nearly all player near a Test team being over 30, aside from novelty-sized mascot Cameron Green and occasional visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that greater age was a problem: a Test team boasting a four-bowler lineup with 1,568 wickets between them is scarcely a weakness, and it stands to reason that all of those bowlers are well into their careers.

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Perhaps what most amplified the discussion is that the reserve players over that time, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also deep into their 30s. Emerging pacemen have floated into teams – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before vanishing for years with injuries, meaning there has been no clear line of succession.

Change Imposed by Injuries

So far, that hasn't been an issue, as the core four plus Boland have continued backing up. Any side knows that having a group of same-generation players might mean a group of similarly-timed retirements, but so far change has remained hypothetical: a train that would indeed be coming round the mountain when she comes, but one that had not become visible.

Now, suddenly, change is upon them, forced upon this Aussie team in the space of a few weeks. The spinal issue to Pat Cummins was taken in stride: he would probably only sit out 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 been sidelined with a hamstring strain, the team balance experiences a much more significant 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 enables Starc’s left-arm speed and movement to be used more as a attacking option. Missing both of them means a fundamental shift in the balance of the team. Boland handling the new ball is nothing new in his first-class career, but he has been so successful in Test matches coming on after seven or eight overs of initial onslaught. Now he’ll likely have to be the opening bowler.

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 full stadium crowd, half of it English, for the first Test of a eagerly awaited Ashes series will not make for an simple first match, no matter how many newspaper profiles portray him as relaxed. He could be brought onto the ground on a banana lounge and still be nervous.

Sign up to The Spin

Who knows, it might all go swimmingly for this revamped bowling lineup. 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, and others. Who knows what further injuries the first Test may bring. It's unknown whether Cummins will be good to go for Brisbane, and good to back up after that match, given how tricky stress fractures can be. It's uncertain how long Hazlewood might be sidelined, with a track record of going down early in series and a pattern of minor injuries turning into longer layoffs.

Future Uncertain

The latter part of the series may see the main four bowlers reunited 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 seemingly the next option and could be a excellent pink-ball Brisbane option, but after that with choices unclear. Sean Abbott was in the original team, though he’s now also injured and has not yet played a Test match. Richardson has just had his injury-prone arm put back on, and this level is not the place for easing into one’s work. After them lies the real unknown, and amid it all opportunity for the opposing side. You can sense that change a-coming, rolling round the corner, and England ain’t seen the sunshine since they can't recall when.