For a long time, a strange situation continued in Australian cricket. Through a one-day World Cup in 2023, through a T20 World Cup in 2024, through a Test summer that sat between them, and through the lead-ups and warm-ups before all of the above, the same three fast bowlers showed up almost all of the time. Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Patrick Cummins, in aeternum.
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Things don’t work that way. Fast bowling is a horrifically taxing art, and the mad operators who pursue it across any level of the game share a gruesome delight in cataloguing their lifetime’s injuries, discarding sneakers and peeling back socks and rolling up trouser legs to show you toes bent sideways or lurid half-moons of scars around ankles or knees. At the top level, fitness and availability are sporadic, and that’s before you come to the changes driven by each format requiring different skills. Australia’s big three have been men for all seasons, all styles, all conditions, in a remarkable show of consistency and adaptability.
At last, with Australia’s Champions Trophy campaign about to start against England on Saturday, the scene has changed. The full trio last played together in the Perth Test late last November, when Hazlewood departed with a side strain. Cummins dropped out before the recent Sri Lanka tour for the birth of his daughter, and subsequently to treat a troublesome ankle. And in the last few days, Starc has asked for personal leave. Then there were none. Across international formats, a combined 44 years of experience and 1,692 wickets are now missing.
Suddenly, Australia’s bowling attack has a distinctly Sheffield Shield flavour. Ben Dwarshuis, with his cartoon moustache and his four overs bowled before breaking down on international debut at Lord’s last year. Sean Abbott, fellow Sydney Sixers toiler and career-long national bench rider. Aaron Hardie, Perth all-rounder; Nathan Ellis, a more comfortable fit as third seamer across 20 overs than attack leader across 50. Spencer Johnson, nearing his 30th birthday with the CV of a 20-year old, with a chance to escape Starc’s shadow as left-arm express.
With the likelihood of flat and fast-scoring wickets in Pakistan, these bowlers could be turned into slot machines. Any opposing batters with a modicum of existing confidence should be bullish about taking on what is very much Australia’s second tier; a rare chance for an easier swing at one of the most dangerous opponents. Such an attitude will of course give the Australians opportunities to do damage on the counter, if they’re good enough, but there will be plenty of risk required to chase the reward.
So if the games become about damage control rather than damage done, Australia’s approach from their one-day World Cup win will no longer be possible. 2023 had some explosive batting, but allowed at times for circumspection from Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne through the middle order, knowing their team’s bowling strength could or had already stopped things from getting out of hand. This time, anticipating bigger scores conceded and missing the strike power of David Warner and Mitchell Marsh, there might be more reliance on fireworks from Travis Head, Glenn Maxwell, and if he can find the mojo again, Jake Fraser-McGurk.
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The main thing in Australia’s favour is the relative weakness of their group. When England’s men won their first World Cup in 2019, administrators hailed it as a Holy Grail, and celebrated that by promptly disassembling the country’s entire domestic one-day structure. The apparent plan, if one could honour it with the designation, was to emanate a smiling confidence that England’s top players would keep coasting to success in the format based on good vibes from the Test team and a bit of T20 franchise touring. Instead they have become a one-day disaster area, after a comically poor World Cup followed by four series losses in a row.
South Africa have also largely given up ODIs and are in similar nick: since their 2023 semi-final they’ve lost a match to Ireland, a series each to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, and a brief tri-series with Pakistan and New Zealand. The most threatening side in the group might just be Afghanistan, whose Australia encounters are increasingly spicy after Maxwell’s double-century heist all but knocked out Afghanistan in 2023, followed by Afghanistan returning the favour in the T20 World Cup nine months later. Resentment continues about Australia boycotting bilateral matches over Taliban human rights abuses, though Cricket Australia still haven’t found the moral fortitude to forfeit tournament points.
England first, then, in what will be interpreted as a shot across the bows ahead of the Ashes at the end of this year, even if it isn’t and it shouldn’t be. With one-day cricket increasingly a context-free zone, it is hard to apply meaning to this encounter, with the two XIs unlikely to bear much resemblance to those that line up in Perth in November. They might bear as little resemblance to those in the 2027 World Cup, an assignment that still seems so distant. In a sport that often struggles for meaning, sometimes the only power is that of the moment right now. For a few hours this Saturday, that might be enough.
