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The historic Ashes series could provide a reason to cheer, but this contest will also witness the Australian team host more birthday parties than Timezone in the nineties. Recent addition Jake Weatherald celebrated his thirty-first birthday a day before the team was announced. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day before the Perth Test. Beau Webster turns 32 just ahead of Brisbane, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on day two in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood turns 35 on the final day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 before January is out.

Older Team Interest Grows

For a couple of years there has been growing curiosity with the age of this side and especially the bowling attack. It is unusual to have nearly all player in a Test team being over 30, aside from young 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-man attack with over 1,500 wickets between them is scarcely a disadvantage, and it stands to reason that all of those bowlers are well into their careers.

I've never felt this sure at the start 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 thirties. Emerging pacemen have briefly joined teams – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before disappearing for years with injury, meaning there has been no clear line of succession.

Transition 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 same-generation players might mean a batch of simultaneous retirements, but so far transition has remained hypothetical: a train that would certainly be coming round the bend when she comes, but one that had not become visible.

Now, abruptly, change is upon them, forced upon this Aussie team in the span of a few weeks. The back injury to Pat Cummins was taken in stride: he would probably only miss the opening match, was the team management assessment, and as the first bowling change behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could easily be replaced by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has gone down with a hamstring strain, the team balance undergoes a far greater change with two players absent rather than a single one. Cummins and Hazlewood as the two accurate right-arm bowlers give the stability and precision that enables Starc’s left-arm speed and movement to be used more as a attacking option. Losing both of them means a fundamental shift in the composition of the side. Boland handling the new ball is not unusual in his domestic career, but he has been so successful in Test matches entering the attack after seven or eight overs of early pressure. Now he’ll probably have to be the opening bowler.

Debutant Confronts 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, partly English, for the opening Test of a deliriously anticipated 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 ground on a banana lounge and still be nervous.

Register to The Spin

Who knows, it might all go smoothly for this new attack. It might not. What is striking is how quickly Australia have moved from the certainty of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, mumble mumble. It's unclear what new injuries the opening match may bring. Who knows whether Cummins will be fit for Brisbane, and good to back up after Brisbane, given how complicated stress fractures can be. It's uncertain how long Hazlewood might be out, with a track record of getting injured early in series and a history of initially small injuries becoming extended absences.

Future Unclear

The latter part of the series may see the primary four bowlers reunited and all performing well. Or it might see transition beginning much earlier 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 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. Richardson has just had his injury-prone arm put back on, 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 train a-coming, rolling round the bend, and the English team ain’t seen the success since they can't recall when.