Australia’s Perth disaster against India proves the end of an era is approaching and plans may have to change

Steve Smith strolls gingerly around the SCG, an Australian flag draped over his shoulders and his well-worn baggy green attached to his head.

Behind him, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon stand arm-in-arm, staring up at a crowd left long after Australia confirmed its 4-0 Ashes victory over England.

There are children on the field rolling around in green and gold confetti. Tears are shed and memories are shared as the curtain falls on the careers of some of Australia’s greatest Test cricketers.

Maybe Josh Hazlewood is among them, and Usman Khawaja if he wants. Pat Cummins says he will stick around for a few years to bridge the gap, but he is also wistful about the breakup of what has been his Australia.

This image is the guiding star of Australia’s Test team. With the bulk of the squad heading into their late 30s, the 2025/26 Ashes has long loomed as a natural and fitting farewell.

One last glorious summer against the old foe, the same graceful exit that Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer enjoyed a generation earlier. It is perfect, predetermined, poetic.

That is, of course, if they get there.

It’s far too early in the summer to be shouting “the end of an era,” but that end is coming. It’s inevitable, and as much as Australians would like to book the date themselves, sport just doesn’t work that way.

And when the Australians rolled into Perth Stadium on day three, killing time until the Indians decided they had had enough of playing with their food, it felt very much like that process accelerated.

How do you have this conversation without it seeming disastrous? Is it even fair to suggest that this protracted winding down of the clock could conceivably cost Australia Test matches and series?

In isolation, this one performance is not enough to make such declarations, but a malaise also crept into the Australian team last summer, culminating in the Gabba defeat to the West Indies.

Barring a miracle, Australia will be badly beaten in this match. The Test team has not come back from 1-0 down in a series to win since 1997.

The team is old in terms of cricket. Hypothetically, if this XI were to stay together until the end of next summer’s Ashes, as seems to be the plan, Khawaja would be 39, Smith 36, Mitch Marsh 34, Alex Carey 34, Lyon 38, Hazlewood one day less than 35, Starc a few days below 36 and Pat Cummins a spring chicken at 32.

When it does, it will all happen at once – unless some very difficult decisions are made over the next 12 months.

Would a third consecutive home series loss to India provoke change? Or is there total trust and commitment by the veterans from this side, to the point where their places are secured regardless of shape or favour? And if it is the case that bad results are only accepted as part of this journey to effective nothingness, then what is the point of any of this?

That’s a lot of rhetorical questions for one day, but those are the thoughts that rumble around when you’re indulged in watching Marnus Labuschagne bowl over the head of Yashasvi Jaiswal, or when Hazlewood takes the second new ball and promptly splashes down two deliveries on the leg side for a total of eight byes.

Or when Virat Kohli is allowed to very casually stroll his way to a first Test century in 16 months, not only taking India’s lead into the world of farce but helping their talisman find form with four more Tests still to play .

So much of India’s game plan on day three was about playing the long game, preparing the Australian bowling attack to an extent that they feel it for the rest of the series. There was mental disintegration at play, but also a very tangible physical decline.

Mitchell Marsh barely bowled due to injury on day two. Starc, who has been in the field for almost the entirety of this Test match so far, was forced to charge and charge until his pace, body and bowling numbers were sufficiently degraded.

Hazlewood was tight but well off the pace, Cummins clearly missing his best. Each over chipped away a little at the reserves of these bowlers, whose depths will be severely tested during this five-Test series.

Australia’s fielding was barely good enough, but certainly no more than that. Bereft of energy and realistic hope, Australia was in the midst of the kind of ritualistic punishment it so regularly doles out to visitors during its domestic summers.

Of course, the easiest way to shut up talk of the future is to perform in the present, and what better way to ease worries about the future than with a world record run chase on an increasingly inconsistent wicket?

But should the next day or two go down as history – and frankly, after losing 3-12 in the absurd last stanza of the day, common sense – suggests it will, the composition of this Australian team in its entirety may not be above discussion. .

No one would suggest a complete overhaul and there is no need yet to beat that game and start over. But there should be an awareness of what this team is sleepwalking into and a plan put in place to avoid it.

After all, the only thing worse than some of these champions not getting their dream send-off would be that post-retirement tour of the SCG that comes in the wake of a crushing Ashes series defeat.

The greatest Australia-India moments

Over the summer, we’ll look back at some of the best stories and share our own favorite moments from Australia and India cricket history.

Join us in continuing the conversation on our live blogs and on the radio the summer before readers’ top 10 will be revealed ahead of the fifth Test at the SCG from 3 January.

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