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The Ashes could provide a reason to cheer, but this contest will also see the Australian team host a greater number of birthdays than an arcade in the nineties. Recent addition Jake Weatherald had his thirty-first birthday a day before the team was named. Nathan Lyon celebrates 38 the day preceding the Perth Test. Beau Webster reaches 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.

Ageing Squad 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 unusual to have almost every player near a Test team being over 30, aside from novelty-sized mascot Cameron Green and custody-weekend visitor Sam Konstas. But it didn’t logically follow that older age was a problem: a Test squad featuring a four-bowler lineup with over 1,500 wickets between them is scarcely a weakness, and it stands to reason that all of those bowlers are well into their careers.

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

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. 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 Forced by Injuries

So far, that hasn’t mattered, as the core four plus Boland have continued performing. Any team knows that having a batch of same-generation players might mean a group of similarly-timed retirements, but so far change has remained hypothetical: a train that would certainly be coming round the bend when she comes, but one that had not steamed into view.

Now, suddenly, transition is here, forced upon this Australian squad in the space of a few weeks. The back injury to Pat Cummins was greeted with equanimity: 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 covered for by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has been sidelined with a hamstring injury, the team balance undergoes a much more significant change 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 weapon of attack. Missing both of them means a fundamental shift 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 likely have to be the man up front.

Newcomer Confronts Expectations

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at thirty-one years of age himself isn't an overawed youth, but he might become an overawed 31-year-old. A full stadium crowd, 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 portray him as laid-back. He could be brought onto the ground on a banana lounge and still be nervous.

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Who knows, it might all go swimmingly for this new attack. It might not work out. What is striking is how rapidly Australia have moved from the certainty of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the uncertainty of Starc, Lyon, mumble mumble. It's unclear what further injuries the first Test may bring. Who knows whether Cummins will be fit for the Brisbane Test, and good to back up after that match, given how tricky stress injuries can be. It's uncertain how long Hazlewood might be sidelined, with a history of going down early in series and a pattern of minor injuries turning into longer layoffs.

Future Unclear

The latter part of the contest may witness the primary four bowlers back together and all going well. Or it might see transition beginning much sooner than the stretch goal of 2027 in the UK. Not through Neser, who is seemingly next in line and could be a great pink-ball Brisbane choice, but after that with options uncertain. Sean Abbott was in the initial squad, though he’s now also injured and has never played a Test. Richardson has just had his crash-test-dummy arm repaired, and this level is no place for easing into one’s work. After them lies the true uncertainty, and throughout it opportunity for the visiting team. You can hear that change a-coming, coming around the bend, and England hasn't seen the success since they can't recall when.