The Australian men's cricket team that will take on India in a five-match Test series from November 22 is one of the country's oldest but chief coach Andrew McDonald is aiming at a smooth transition by the time his freshly renewed contract expires in 2027.
The average age of the Australian team is around 33 and in the next couple of years, there could be a mass exodus just like it happened in the late 2000s when Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Justin Langer, Adam Gilchrist and Brett Lee all retired one after the other.
According to cricket.com.au "with Travis Head (in December last year) and Marnus Labuschagne (June) both recently celebrating their 30th birthdays and, with incumbent Cameron Green unavailable for the coming home season after back surgery, Pat Cummins could lead a team that features all 11 players older than 30 if Marcus Harris or Cameron Bancroft gets the nod to open the batting."
McDonald understands the implication of an ageing team and is already thinking about the way forward.
"People take it back to 2007 when mass players have exited and they've struggled to obviously perform at the same level – we're not beholden to the past," McDonald told reporters on Thursday.
"I think if you get the selections right on the back of players exiting, then the transition is lot smoother." In suggesting "one-day cricket can be the bridge to Test cricket", McDonald forecasted the likelihood of leading Test players continuing to sit out bilateral limited-overs series on occasions.
The current Australian red-ball side comprises seven players, who are all aged between 33 and 37.
Josh Hazlewood, Mitch Marsh and Alex Carey all are 33, while Mitchell Starc (34), Steve Smith (35), Nathan Lyon (36) and Usman Khawaja (37) are reaching the fag end of their careers.
McDonald believes in a senior cricketer helping out a junior to ease into the set-up in the transition process, and as long as a senior performs, there is no reason to change it.
"We're big believers that within that – if you want to call it transition – that the older, more experienced players assist those younger players when they come through the changeroom," he said.
"So it's about making sure that we don't exit senior players too soon and lose that knowledge within that playing group. That's incredibly important for us to get that balance right," he added.
McDonald called it "future proofing" the team.
"Our mindset is always about … future proofing in the team. We've had opportunities in bilateral (white-ball) series to expose that next generation.
"Test cricket has been slightly different, we have been really settled and almost predictable in the way that we have gone about it. That's not a bad thing … we're number one in the Test rankings.
"It's very hard to change a settled team that's performing really well."
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