For England, this has been a summer of transition and transformation. Compared with the team that beat Australia at the Oval in the last home Test of 2023, the side that lost to Sri Lanka at the same venue on Monday was, on average, five and a half years younger.
In the intervening period, Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad and Moeen Ali retired, and with Mark Wood and Ben Stokes injured, England went from a team that had taken 2,008 Test wickets to one with 332, from 38,417 Test runs to 22,128 (56% of them scored by Joe Root) and from a wicketkeeper who had done the job in 147 first-class games to one wearing the gloves for the 25th time.
