Steve Waugh’s fears about the future of the Test side are bang on, even if he missed the mark with his claim of player power at selection and questions over George Bailey’s gumption to make tough calls.

Australia’s 15-player Test squad has just one player under the age of 30. If Jake Weatherald is presented with a baggy green in Perth, which appears likely given the confidence over Cameron Green’s fitness, he will be the second 31-year-old to make his Test debut in the past 12 months.

Steve Waugh took aim at chief selector George Bailey.Credit: Getty Images

If it wasn’t Weatherald, it would have been a 29-year-old Matt Renshaw to open with Usman Khawaja, 38, or the 34-year-old Mitch Marsh.

There will be a third over-30 debutant should any of Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc or Scott Boland break down between now and whenever Pat Cummins returns – expected to be either the second or third Test.

Waugh knows more keenly than most what happens when succession planning is botched.

He cut his teeth as a 20-year-old in the dark days of the mid-1980s when Australia won just one of 11 series between the simultaneous retirements of Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh after the 1983-84 summer to the breakthrough Ashes win in England in 1989.

When Australia last lost the urn at home in 2010-11, Waugh was part of the authors of the root-and-branch Argus review which identified inadequate succession planning as one of the reasons behind the teams’ decline.

The difference between then and now is selectors are........

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