There was a simplicity to the statement. Australian cricket has a capacity for straight talking and Dan Christian, the all-rounder who came out of retirement last winter to figure in the Big Bash in his forties, tended to justify the presence of veterans in four words: “Old blokes win stuff”. It was his philosophy in Twenty20 tournaments and he won them in four different countries, often in his late thirties.
Since then, it is an attitude that seems to have spread across Australian cricket. Young blokes are conspicuous by their absence. When Australia last played a Test at home, it was without anyone in their twenties: the teenager Sam Konstas was accompanied by 10 thirtysomethings. When they named their squad for the first Ashes Test in Perth, Konstas was dropped, the 31-year-old Jake Weatherald selected and the 26-year-old Cameron Green was the only man below 30, joined by 14 of his elders. The Cameron Green generation consists of only Cameron Green.
