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The historic Ashes series may offer one cause for celebration, but this contest will also witness the Australian team host more birthday parties than Timezone in the 90s. New boy Jake Weatherald celebrated his 31st a day prior to the squad was announced. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day preceding the Perth Test. Beau Webster reaches 32 just before Brisbane, 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 by the time January is over.

Ageing Team Interest Grows

For a couple of years there has been growing fascination with the average age of this side and especially the bowling attack. It is unusual to have nearly all player near a Test side being over 30, except for novelty-sized mascot Cameron Green and occasional visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that older age was a disadvantage: a Test squad 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 careers.

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Perhaps what most amplified the talking point is that the reserve players over that period, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also well into their 30s. Younger bowlers have briefly joined teams – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before disappearing for years with injury, meaning there has been no obvious replacement plan.

Change Imposed by Setbacks

So far, that hasn’t mattered, as the Big Four plus Boland have kept on backing up. Any side 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 train that would certainly be arriving the mountain when she comes, but one that hadn’t yet become visible.

Now, suddenly, change is upon them, forced upon this Aussie team in the space of a short period. The spinal issue to Pat Cummins was greeted with equanimity: he would likely only sit out the opening match, was the Cricket Australia assessment, and as the first bowling change behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could comfortably be covered for by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has been sidelined with a hamstring strain, the team balance undergoes a much more significant change with two key bowlers absent rather than one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two accurate right-arm bowlers give the stability and precision that allows Starc’s left-arm pace and swing to be used more as a weapon of attack. Losing both of them means a major adjustment in the composition of the team. Boland handling the new ball is nothing new in his first-class career, but he has been so successful in Tests entering the attack after seven or eight overs of initial onslaught. Now he’ll probably have to be the man up front.

Debutant Faces Expectations

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at thirty-one years of age himself won’t be an overawed youth, but he might become an overawed 31-year-old. A full stadium crowd, partly English, for the first Test of a eagerly awaited Ashes series will not make for an simple first match, no matter how many media stories describe him as laid-back. He could be wheeled onto the ground on a banana lounge and still be nervous.

Sign up 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 moved from the surety of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the uncertainty of Starc, Lyon, and others. Who knows what further injuries the opening match may bring. Who knows whether Cummins will be good to go for Brisbane, and good to back up after that match, given how complicated 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 initially small injuries becoming longer layoffs.

Future Unclear

The back half of the series may witness the primary four bowlers reunited and all performing well. Or it might see transition setting in much earlier than the long-term aim of 2027 in the UK. Not through Neser, who is apparently the next option and could be a great pink-ball Brisbane option, but beyond that with options unclear. Sean Abbott was in the original team, though he’s now also hurt and has never played a Test. Richardson has just had his injury-prone arm repaired, and this format is no place for gradually starting one’s work. After them lies the true uncertainty, and amid it all opportunity for the visiting team. You can hear that train approaching, coming around the corner, and England ain’t seen the success since they don’t know when.