whims of selectors, coaches and national captains, but they looked young, strong and keen. In fact, the aforementioned injuries, and Cricket Australia's attempts to manage them, would serve to keep the trio away from each other right up until the selection of this Ashes squad.

Pat Cummins is mobbed by his team-mates after taking his maiden Test wicket Getty Images

Even then, their selection together was delayed until Leeds by the sort of careful management of resources that has characterised this Ashes campaign. All had to go through plenty of individual battles to get their bodies ready for the rigours of Test matches, and playing more than a couple of them at a time between major back, side or foot injuries.

Hazlewood waited nearly five years between his international debut in2010 and his first Test in 2014. Pattinson played four in a row in 2011-12 but then suffered a litany of back problems in particular that very nearly ended his career. Certainly the New Zealand surgeon Grahame Inglis, who had worked wonders for the likes of Shane Bond and Matt Henry with spinal surgery, initially thought Pattinson's back was too far gone for his remedial work. As for Cummins, he spent six years between his first Test and his second, at times leaving his Johannesburg debut to feel more mythical than real.

"It is the first time Cummins, Pattinson and myself have played in the same team so it was pretty exciting in the morning," Hazlewood said. "It's been in the pipeline for quite a while but never actually