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The historic Ashes series may offer a reason to cheer, but this contest will also witness the Australian team host more birthday parties than Timezone in the 90s. New boy Jake Weatherald celebrated his thirty-first birthday a day prior to the squad was named. Nathan Lyon turns 38 the day preceding the Perth Test. Beau Webster reaches 32 just before the Brisbane match, Usman Khawaja will be 39 on day two in Adelaide, Josh Hazlewood turns 35 on the fifth day in Sydney, and Mitchell Starc will be 36 before January is out.

Older Team Fascination Builds

For two or three years there has been growing curiosity with the age of this team and especially the bowling unit. It is rare to have nearly all player near a Test team being over 30, aside from novelty-sized mascot Cameron Green and custody-weekend visitor Sam Konstas. But it wasn't necessarily true that greater age was a problem: a Test team featuring a four-bowler lineup with over 1,500 wickets between them is scarcely a weakness, and it makes sense that all of those bowlers are well into their professional lives.

I've never felt this sure at the start of an Ashes tour | a former player

Perhaps what really highlighted the talking point is that the backup bowlers over that time, Scott Boland and Michael Neser, are also well into their 30s. Younger bowlers have floated into teams – Lance Morris, Jhye Richardson – before disappearing for years with injury, meaning there has been no clear line of succession.

Transition Imposed by Injuries

So far, that hasn’t mattered, as the Big Four plus Boland have kept on performing. Any side knows that having a batch of similarly-aged players might mean a batch of similarly-timed departures, but so far change has remained hypothetical: a process that would indeed be arriving the mountain when she comes, but one that hadn’t yet steamed into view.

Now, suddenly, change is here, forced upon this Australian squad in the span of a few weeks. The spinal issue to Pat Cummins was taken in stride: he would likely only sit out the first Test, was the Cricket Australia assessment, and as the first-change bowler behind Starc and Hazlewood, he could easily be covered for by Boland.

But now that Hazlewood has gone down with a hamstring injury, the balance undergoes a far greater shift with two key bowlers absent rather than a single 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 side. Boland handling the new ball is not unusual 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 opening bowler.

Newcomer Confronts Expectations

Behind him will come Brendan Doggett, who at 31 years old himself isn't an overawed youth, but he might become an nervous thirty-one-year-old. A packed stadium, half of it English, for the first Test of a deliriously anticipated 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 sun lounger and still be nervous.

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It's uncertain, it might all go smoothly for this revamped bowling lineup. It might not. What is striking is how rapidly Australia have transitioned from the certainty of Starc, Lyon, Cummins, Hazlewood to the unknown of Starc, Lyon, and others. It's unclear what new injuries the first Test may cause. It's unknown whether Cummins will be good to go for the Brisbane Test, and good to back up after that match, given how tricky stress fractures can be. Who knows how long Hazlewood might be out, with a track record of getting injured early in series and a history of minor injuries turning into longer layoffs.

Outlook Uncertain

The back half of the series may witness the primary four bowlers reunited and all going well. Or it might see transition beginning much earlier than the stretch goal of 2027 in England. Not through Neser, who is apparently next in line and could be a excellent pink-ball Brisbane option, but after that with options unclear. Sean Abbott was in the initial squad, though he’s now also hurt and has never played a Test match. 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 real unknown, and amid it all opportunity for the visiting team. You can hear that train a-coming, coming around the corner, and the English team hasn't seen the success since they don’t know when.