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Cricket PlayersWeakest in 15 years, but 99 wins in…: Reminding the bitter truth of Australia still being outright favourites for Ashes
England faces a daunting task against Australia, who haven't lost a home Ashes series since 2010-11.
Australia might be walking into this Ashes with their weakest XI in 15 years - and still walk in as favourites. That contradiction is exactly where this series lives.
England arrive with what even neutral observers are calling their strongest Ashes squad in years, but they are up against a side that hasn’t lost an Ashes series at home since 2010-11 and has run up a brutal 5-0, 4-0, 4-0 streak in the last three home editions.
A golden era fraying at the edges
Let us start with the age column of the current Australian squad. Cameron Green is the only player in his 20s; everyone else belongs to the 30-plus club.
This is effectively the last big stand for the Smith-Starc-Hazlewood-Lyon-Khawaja generation. The batting core is creaking: Marnus Labuschagne has averaged in the low-20s over the last two years in Test cricket, with just one century in his last 28 matches. Usman Khawaja, 38, has only one hundred in the last two-and-a-half years, and that came on a slow Galle track rather than against high-quality pace on hard decks.
Layer on Pat Cummins missing the Perth opener with a back issue, and this looks nothing like the invincible unit of 2013-19.
Still the favourites
Strip the emotion out and look at what England are actually trying to overturn.
Recent home Ashes scoreline for Australia
Since 2000, Australia have lost only 13% of their home Tests - 99 wins, 18 defeats, 22 draws - and have won 71.2% of all home Test series across the last 25 years. That’s the base rate you are betting against.
Even in this “weakened” state, the attack remains elite: Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Scott Boland, and Nathan Lyon, with Cummins returning from the second Test and Green/Webster as support. Cummins already has 300-plus wickets at an average of 22.10, a number only McGrath, Ambrose, Marshall, and Rabada have bettered among high-volume quicks. Lyon is just two wickets away from going past McGrath into second on Australia’s all-time list.
The schedule also tilts their way. The Ashes run from 21 November to 8 January, starting at Perth, then a pink-ball Test at the Gabba, followed by Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney - a fast-bowling dream sequence in the first half, then two grounds where Australia’s veterans know exactly how to close a series.
So yes, this is probably the thinnest, oldest Australian Ashes squad since the late Ponting-Hussey years. But it is also a side that’s grown up bullying England on these pitches, with a bowling group still good enough to win low-scoring series on muscle memory alone.
For England, the reality check is brutal: you are not playing peak Australia, but you are still playing Australia at home.
