Father time is undefeated. Although Australia’s ageing cartel of world-class fast bowlers are railing against the slow setting of the sun, defying conventional wisdom, age will eventually weary them, and the forthcoming year might condemn.
Pat Cummins, 33, Josh Hazlewood, 35, Mitchell Starc, 36, and Scott Boland, 37, are all in outstanding shape as they reach the start line of a run of 20 Tests in the space of 12 months, possibly 21 Tests if they reach the WTC final. The first of those Tests begins against Bangladesh in Darwin on August 13. All bar Boland are aiming to also play in the ODI World Cup, in October and November 2027.
Australia’s selectors, coaches and sports science and sports medicine (SSSM) staff are collectively holding their breath on what is to come. It is a more challenging schedule than 2023, which also featured a tour of India, a WTC final, an away Ashes, and an ODI World Cup, and this time, the quartet are four years older.
Questions are understandably being asked about what the fast-bowling stocks behind the big four look like given the first-choice back-ups are 36-year-old Michael Neser and 32-year-old Brendan Doggett. The pipeline of ready-made fast bowling in Australia’s domestic system appears nowhere near as bountiful right now as it has been in the past.
Stock watch: how healthy is Australia’s pipeline?
As the warm winter sun rose over the picturesque Allan Border Field in Brisbane’s inner north-eastern suburbs on the last day of July, a group of Australia’s most senior bowling coaches took a short walk from the National Cricket Centre down Greg Chappell Street to discuss that very question over coffee at Collingwood Black Espresso.
There were decades of coaching experience at all levels among them, as well as hundreds of Test wickets and thousands of first-class ones. The group included Australia’s head coach Andrew McDonald; new bowling coach James Franklin, who will share team bowling duties with Daniel Vettori over the coming year; national pace bowling coach Adam Griffith; two-time Sheffield Shield-winning South Australia coach Ryan Harris; Queensland bowling coach Hamish Bennett, and many others from around the country.