New heroes emerge with Australia's one hand firmly on the Ashes

Australia are no strangers to being 2-0 up in a home Ashes series.

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Brendan Doggett celebrates as Gus Atkinson falls into his trap. (Getty Images)

(Getty Images)

It has been that way on the last three occasions. When a particularly animated Steven Smith pulled Gus Atkinson for a mighty six at the end of a feisty few minutes, they were at the 2-0 mark again. But this one has been a little different.Amid the celebrations for Smith's unbelievable catch to remove Will Jacks, which broke England's belated resistance on the fourth day, there was a reminder of some of what Australia were missing in this match. The drinks carriers had 871 Test wickets between them: the somewhat overqualified pair of Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon.

To that, you can add the 295 of Josh Hazlewood, who faces a race to feature at all in this series. Then there's the fact that an entirely new opening pair has been formed by accident due to the injury suffered by Usman Khawaja. Form debates for Khawaja aside, it required another divergence from Plan A.

From the moment Cummins was ruled out of the opening stages of the series, Australia have had to be adaptable. When Hazlewood went down as well (along with Sean Abbott), it really tested their pace-bowling depth. Then they turned up at the Gabba, thought long and hard for three days, and at the last moment, gave Lyon a tap on the shoulder that left him "absolutely filthy".