Will the WTC cap off the finest triumph for Messrs Starc, Cummins, Hazlewood & Lyon who have never won ICC Test silverware together? | Cricket News

It will be hard to shrug off those astute accumulations – 522 wickets between them in only 32 of the 70 Tests Australia have played in the last eight years. Clocking an average of 16.22 wickets per match, the ‘S.C.H.L’ attack stands peerless on the four-bowler Test combinations, with the second-placed James Anderson-Stuart Broad-Ben Stokes-Moeen Ali quadruple amassing 424 wickets in 34 Tests across nine years at 12.74 wickets per game.

Wickets from their combined presence nearly match the South African WTC squad’s total wicket-taking experience (690), polished heavily by Kagiso Rabada (327 wickets) in one half. The lack of English experience will also leave the Saffers bowling only a third in the strength of Test caps in the country, as opposed to the S.C.H.L, ahead of Australia and South Africa’s first neutral Test fixture in 113 years since their Lord’s meeting in 1912.

Despite the propensity of this four-man attack to champion contrasting conditions, Australia’s S.C.H.L has had a limited presence outside their daunting home territory Down Under.

Interestingly, only twice before have Australia fielded all four modern greats together in England across 11 Tests since 2019, picking up 34 wickets at a strike rate of 56.0.

Over 77 percent (400) of the Starc-Cummins-Hazlewood-Lyon combine’s wickets have come in 24 home Tests, 15 of which have fashioned outright Australian victories. Despite their assertive role in the conditioning of Australia’s bowling wheel for a considerable period, the quartet has missed out on collective ICC Test silverware.

The next WTC cycle, starting immediately after the upcoming Lord’s finale, will probably be the final edition where Australia will have the advantage of their own ‘Fab 4’ in the roster. While they have appeared in multiple ‘threes’ in the past, the S.C.H.L. is yet to win either the ICC Test mace or the WTC crown, for Hazlewood missed out on the 2023 final win over India at the Oval due to injury.

The capricious London skies and the dark Dukes ball will beckon more load from the pace trio of the Oz order next week. While Lyon’s nagging presence will keep him in the game at any given point, skipper Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood will be the vicious prongs the Proteas would not necessarily savour.

In the four Tests the trio have played without Lyon in England, Starc, Cummins and Hazlewood have totalled 53 wickets, averaging 30 with a dismissal every 46 deliveries.

Potentially heading into their 35th Test, the Starc-Hazlewood-Cummins trio remains Australia’s most prolific pace attack and joint-fifth on the wicket-taking charts among all pace Test trios ever. Snaring 12.23 wickets per appearance, the all-encompassing triumvirate stands only behind New Zealand’s Trent Boult-Tim Southee-Neil Wagner (13.38 wkts/match) and the fiery yesteryear Windies club of Joel Garner, Michael Holding and Malcolm Marshall, who reeled in 331 wickets in 26 Tests at 12.73.

A Scott Boland challenge awaits Hazlewood in the race to make the XI at Lord’s next week. But for four of Australia’s bulwarks, an enticing chance of collective glory awaits at the home of cricket, nevertheless. Will the S.C.H.L school Temba Bavuma and Co. on the way to defend their status at the top of the championship, or will the underdog South African attack upset the Aussie applecart at the home of cricket?