Monday 20 November 2017 09:07, UK
Australia have announced their 13-man squad for the first Ashes Test in Brisbane next Thursday, and the Aussie selectors have included a few names that might be unfamiliar to England supporters.
Opener Cameron Bancroft is set to make his Test debut, while wicketkeeper Tim Paine has earned a shock recall to the side.
With Pat Cummins, Peter Handscomb and Chadd Sayers also in the squad there could be up to five newcomers to Ashes cricket when Steve Smith leads his side out at the Gabba.
Here we profile Australia's Ashes newcomers...
Cummins burst on to the Test scene in 2011 as an 18-year-old, taking match figures of 7-117 and earning the man-of-the-match award as Australia beat South Africa by two wickets at the Wanderers.
However, he has played just four Tests since in a career plagued by injuries and is yet to feature in a five-day match for his country on home soil.
When fit, he is a real handful for batsmen and his extreme pace in Australian conditions could prove to be a real weapon for Aussie skipper Smith.
Australia will just be hoping they can keep him fit to play a key part in the entire series.
Handscomb made his Test debut in 2016 and immediately looked at home, hitting 54 and the winning runs against South Africa at Adelaide.
He continued his impressive form in the Test arena in his next match, scoring his maiden hundred against Pakistan at the Gabba and by the end of the summer, he had not been dismissed for a score less than 50 in his first seven innings - the first player in Test history to achieve that feat.
Averaging a touch above 53, the 26-year-old, who has captained Victoria in the Sheffield Shield this season, hit his second Test hundred against Pakistan in Sydney but of the six Tests he has featured since - all which have been in the subcontinent - he has failed to reach three figures.
Handscomb, who scored 441 first-class runs at 33 for Yorkshire last season, will be itching to get back on Australian soil and Australia will hope he can replicate the 399 runs at 99.4 he scored in four Tests at home last summer.
The shock selection! Paine's recall to the Test side has been greeted with surprise in Australia after he was handed wicket-keeping duties ahead of Tasmania team-mate Matthew Wade and Peter Nevill.
The 32-year-old was billed as the long-term replacement for Brad Haddin when he made his ODI debut in 2009 and he made his Test bow in England in 2010 against Pakistan.
He went on to play three more Test matches and it could have been more but for a serious finger injury he sustained in 2010.
Paine, who has just one first-class hundred to his name, spent nearly six years out of the Australia set-up before being recalled in February the year for the T20 series against Sri Lanka, and now he gets the chance to test himself against England again after scoring 52 in Adelaide against them for the Cricket Australia XI.
Bancroft will be well known to Gloucestershire fan after two stints as the club's overseas player.
The 24-year-old spent the early part of the 2016 season at the Brightside Ground before returning for the whole of the 2017 season, during which he hit an unbeaten 206 against Kent - an innings which lasted more than eight hours.
The opener's breakthrough season in Australia came during the 2014-15 season. He finished third on the list of Sheffield Shield run scorers, hitting 896 runs at 47.15. A Test call-up soon followed as Bancroft, who is highly-rated by his Western Australia coach Justin Langer, was named in Australia's squad for the 2015 tour of Bangladesh. However, he never got the opportunity to join up with the team as the tour was cancelled due to safety concerns.
Bancroft, who made his only T20I appearance in 2016 against India, now gets a deserved opportunity to make the Test opening berth his own after hitting scores of 76 not out, 86 and an unbeaten 228 for Western Australia in his last two Sheffield Shield games.
After an iauspicious start to his first-class career, Sayers' breakthrough season came in 2012/13 when he topped the Sheffield Shield wicket charts, taking 48 scalps at an average of 18.52.
The 30-year-old, who has the ability to swing the ball both ways, eventually won a call-up to Australia's Test squad for the 2016 tour of New Zealand, but he is still waiting for his international debut.
Sayers has started the season in excellent form, taking 14 wickets from three Sheffield Shield matches. He may have even caught the eye of Australia's captain in the first of those matches, dismissing Smith lbw for nine.
It's no secret the South Australian is behind Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Cummins in the pecking order but with the injury record of Australia's pacemen not the best, he will be waiting in the wings for his opportunity.
