Australia head into tomorrow’s series opener in Perth minus Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, a pairing they have almost come to regard as non-negotiable at home. Both quicks are injured, so Mitchell Starc will lead a new-look attack featuring two debutants, Brendan Doggett and Jake Weatherald. A seventh different opening partner in 16 Tests for Usman Khawaja speaks to how much tinkering has been forced on the side.
Starc, asked whether the late reshuffle rattled him, shrugged. “Injuries happen in fast bowling,” he said, a line delivered with the weary grin of someone who has lived that truth. Australia see no point fretting over what they cannot fix in 24 hours.
Stand-in captain Steven Smith projected a similar calm in a packed media room. “I think you want to try and win the first Test match and get yourself ahead of the game, I suppose, or the series,” he said. “But I think either way we look at last summer, we lost the first Test match and we were able to claw the series back.
“We’ve got a lot of belief in that change room, if the result doesn’t go our way this week, that we can turn it around. We saw it last year. So ideally, we play well this week, and we’ve got potentially Patty on the table next game. Josh, I don’t know, but I think we’ll see how this week pans out.”
Those memories of India pinching the opening Test 12 months ago remain fresh. Australia were underdone then; this time they have crammed Shield cricket into everyone’s legs. Every squad member bar Khawaja featured in the most recent round, and all but Travis Head and Starc have banked two first-class matches inside a month. The golf clubs that came out a little too often last year have, by all accounts, stayed mostly in the boot.
Even so, a home XI carrying two green caps and only one of the traditional ‘big three’ quicks looks unusual. Smith did not bother pretending otherwise. “It’s pretty standard,” he said when asked about the media swirl, but there was a wry raise of the eyebrows that told its own story. Later, he expanded. “I’ve been involved in a few now, and there’s always so many words said before the series. But for us, I think it’s about just ignoring the outside noise, concentrating on our processes, what we do well as a team and trusting and backing that throughout. It’s exciting that we’re starting tomorrow. Everyone’s been raring to go for the last few days of training and even before that.”
England, for their part, sense an opening. Win in Perth and they break a hoodoo dating back to Mike Gatting’s 1986 tourists; lose and the old ‘same-old-same-old’ narrative looms. Privately they are delighted not to be facing Cummins on one of his favourite surfaces. Publicly they insist nothing changes: pitch up, hit your lengths, bat long, keep the noise down. The advantage is real, though, and they know it.
Doggett, 30, grabs his chance after season-on-season of solid Shield work for Queensland and, more recently, South Australia. Weatherald’s promotion is bolder. The left-hander plays his strokes and lives with the consequences; on a quick Perth deck, that could thrill or backfire inside an hour. Smith and coach Andrew McDonald back that risk, arguing movement at the top is overdue.
A brief word on workload. Starc remains the only seamer from the usual trio fit to play, and the schedule is tight: five Tests in seven weeks. Rotating the attack was always likely; it is now unavoidable. A tidy, understated Scott Boland has been kept on ice, while Lance Morris hovers should more pace be required in Adelaide.
None of this means Australia are banking on Perth as a must-win. The dressing-room message is clear enough: remember India, stay in the fight, and trust that Cummins, maybe Hazlewood, will re-emerge before the series tilts decisively.
Hardly the smoothest build-up, then, but no panic either. An Ashes summer rarely grants perfect conditions. This one, at least, begins with both sides compelled to show their depth straight away. For the neutral, that is no bad thing.
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