Australia’s ‘old blokes’ rally together for the Ashes chasing one last demolition of England

Join the Miguel Delaney team: Inside Football Get exclusive insights and behind-the scenes access to the Miguel Delaney: inside newsletter Football Join the Miguel Delaney Inside newsletter Football There was simplicity in the statement. Australian cricketers are known to be straight talkers. Dan Christian was one of the players who came out from retirement to play in the Big Bash last winter. “Old blokes win stuff”. He won Twenty20 tournaments in four countries and often at a late age. It seems that this attitude has spread to the Australian cricket scene. The absence of young men is conspicuous. The last time Australia played at home, they had no one in their 20s: Sam Konstas accompanied by ten thirty-somethings. Konstas, a 31-year old Jake Weatherald, and 26-year old Cameron Green were the only men under 30 in the squad that was named for the Ashes test at Perth. The Cameron Green Generation consists only of Cameron Green. This clearly poses a long-term issue. It is not clear if the shortcoming will be the reason for Australia losing the Ashes. The question is whether they are an old or old-fashioned team. Two of Australia’s greatest batters, Greg Chappell and Steve Waugh, have sounded the warning about the lack of change. Chappell was a great batsman who played up until the age of 35. He scored 182 runs in his last innings. Waugh was 38 when he retired with 80. Now that seven of the likely 11 players in Perth have attained the age of 34, it is important to ask if their successors are able resist time and England. It’s not confirmed yet, but retirements could be in the works within the next two years. The Ashes Whitewash of 2006-07 was the perfect way to say goodbye for Glenn McGrath. Shane Warne, and Justin Langer. The bowlers had shared 44 wickets while the opener made 303, both at slightly lower than their career average. However, they each contributed to show that their power was still intact. open image in galleryNathan Lyon remains Australia’s leading spin bowler (AFP via Getty Images)Is the same true of their successors? Four of Australia’s top nine all-time wicket-takers are part of the most successful bowling unit ever. Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood were the most successful bowlers in history, with a combined total of 1566 Test wickets. Many of these scalps came from an attack between them. The captain will miss the first Test – and be replaced by the still older Scott Boland, whose average is still lower – but the three quicks have retained a speed more associated with younger men: Starc is both the oldest and the fastest, though still 19 days younger than Mark Wood. Hazlewood Cummins Boland may benefit from the fact that Australian pitches have become more bowler-friendly. For the spinner Lyon, going up against the relative rookie Shoaib Bashir offers arguably Australia’s greatest advantage in a direct comparison between these teams. In the batting, Usman Khawaja, whose birth in 1986 was closer to Don Bradman’s final Test than today, will be Australia’s oldest opener for seven decades. In Galle, he scored 232 runs against Sri Lanka. In his 11 last Tests, in conditions more conducive to seaming, against New Zealand and India, South Africa, West Indies and South Africa, he scored 395 runs, at an average of 18.8. In another era, with more competition, the 39-year-old may have been omitted.Marnus Labuschagne was dropped – and the low-scoring series in the Caribbean might have been a good one to miss – after averaging 25.8 in his previous 15 Tests. Left to right: Marnus labuschagne, Travis Head, and Steve Smith remain in the batting lineup (AFP via Getty Images). The 36-year-old has averaged 42 in his last 23 Tests: very good by most others’ standards, but a drop-off by his own. Smith is indisputably Australia’s best batter now, though Travis Head’s propensity to score quickly can make him the most dangerous, but if he could repeat his 2019 Ashes, when he averaged 110, England’s prospects of regaining the urn would disappear. Smith is one of the most decorated cricketers in a generation. He has won two World Cups for 50-overs, a Twenty20 tournament and the World Test Championship. He also dominated the home Ashes Series and topped world Test rankings. They have the medals and the runs. It’s understandable that legends age together, particularly if their supposed successors aren’t putting pressure on them to take their place. Even the back-ups and the relative newcomers – Weatherald, Beau Webster, Brendan Doggett, Sean Abbott – are their peers; that should be more worrying for Australia than the longevity of men like Smith and Starc.But it provides a second role reversal. Normaly, Australia would be the aggressive team and England the conservative one. England, the older country, has always been more likely to trust the younger players. Australia, on the other hand, tends to rely on their experience. Now England has Bazball with its senior citizens and a group in their 20s, but no Test wins in Australia in the last 15 years. Australia has good reason to trust the experienced: they have a great record at home. Open image in galleryJake weatherald earned his first test call-up when he was 31. Australia can be too much for England players who are nearing their end. It was for Graeme Swann, Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen, for different reasons, in 2013-14, for Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting, for the same reason, in 1994-95, for much of the elderly team terrorised by Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson in 1974-75.There may have been fewer Australians who have outstayed their welcome but Jason Gillespie went from gun bowler to cannon fodder in a few weeks in 2005, the previously fearsome Thomson only took three wickets at 91 in 1985 and Graham McKenzie, the leading Test wicket-taker of the 1960s, mustered a mere seven expensive wickets in the 1970-71 Ashes.In general, though, Australia, either via the selectors’ or the players’ own decisions, are better at pensioning cricketers off before they suffer an ignominious end on the big stage. Has this group also timed its exits well? Now an older group has gathered to seek what for many would be their last devastation of England. Do old men win the Ashes series of cricket? Australia will soon find out.
2025-11-12 09:53:11