New boys make good

It was the year in which Australia won the World Cup on home soil, and enjoyed world cricket's best winning ratio. It was the year in which Australia's top three scored more runs than ever before in Test history, despite the team losing to retirements 365 Tests of experience. It was the year in which Australia lost only one series. There is, of course, a but, and a significant one. Unlike Sir Mix-A-Lot, Australia do not like this big but, and they cannot lie. That one lost series was the Ashes.

Yes, 2015 was the year in which Australia gained cricket's biggest world trophy, but it was also the year they gave up the game's smallest and most significant bilateral one. How do you rate a year of such pleasure and pain? Coach Darren Lehmann reckons it was a 7.5 out of 10. "We've ticked every box we wanted to at the start of the year, apart from the Ashes," Lehmann said. "But you're judged on big performances and big series, so that was disappointing."

At the time, disappointing might have been an understatement. The tour felt like such an opportunity. England entered the series having had a disastrous first half of the year. Their World Cup had been a debacle, they had lost Test matches to both West Indies and New Zealand in the lead-up to the Ashes, and they had changed coaches just two months before the campaign. By comparison, Australia were settled, and in form.

But on a slow and dry Cardiff pitch, Australia were dealt a significant reality check. They had won the Ashes 5-0 at home a year and a half earlier, but retaining them away was going to be tougher than they expected. A strong fightback at Lord's levelled the series 1-1, but then came two decisive days that determined the series. All out for 136 in the first innings in Birmingham, all out 60 in Nottingham. In the 'hams, England's bowlers brought home the bacon.

The ball swung and seamed, Australia's batsmen swung and seemed incompetent. The moving ball remains an issue for Australia, and one they will have to face up to in a Test series in New Zealand in February. But their next chance to win the Ashes in England is not until 2019, when Steven Smith will be 30, Peter Nevill 33, David Warner 32, Usman Khawaja 32, Nathan Lyon 31, Joe Burns 29, Mitchell Starc 29, James Pattinson 29, Josh Hazlewood 28, and Mitchell Marsh 27.

It will be fascinating to see how many of those men are part of the 2019 campaign; form and fitness permitting, they might all be there. And that is the upshot of the year 2015 in Test cricket for Australia: by December, it was as if a whole new generation had taken over the wearing of the baggy green. Ryan Harris retired before the Ashes, Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin, Chris Rogers and Shane Watson after the series, and Mitchell Johnson during the home summer.

In the space of six months Australia lost six of their senior Test figures, more than 20,000 Test runs and 532 Test wickets. Perhaps it was fortunate that their next two series were at home, after the cancellation of October's two-Test tour of Bangladesh due to security concerns. Slow-starting New Zealand and West Indies outfits could not contain Australia's batsmen at home, and the Trans-Tasman and Frank Worrell trophies were retained easily.

It was notable that after the humiliation of being rolled for 60 at Trent Bridge, an innings that effectively decided the Ashes, Australia's top order found some resolve. The next five opening partnerships after that all reached 100, the first two between Warner and Rogers, and the next three between Warner and Burns. Three Australians - Smith, Warner and Adam Voges - passed 1000 Test runs for the calendar year.

It was significant for all three: Smith in the year he officially became Test captain, Warner in the year he became vice-captain, and Voges in the year he became a Test cricketer. Voges struggled in the Ashes but the rest of his year was remarkable, including at 35 becoming the oldest man to score a Test hundred on debut, in Dominica. By the end of the year he had a Test average of 542 against Jason Holder's men. Perhaps only Blackbeard has ever ransacked the West Indies more fiercely than Voges.

On the bowling front, Lyon only continued to improve and became Australia's most successful Test offspinner of all time, while Hazlewood and Starc took wickets so consistently that the retirements of Johnson and Harris were not felt as profoundly as they might have been. By the end of the year, James Pattinson was back from a long injury lay-off and even allrounder Mitchell Marsh was breaking the 140kph mark regularly.

Of course, they found the going easier at home than they had in England, the red Kookaburra swinging, seaming and bouncing in more familiar ways. Oh, and the pink one. It cannot be forgotten that in November, Australia won the inaugural day-night Test against New Zealand at Adelaide Oval, the pink ball standing up well, albeit on a pitch that had been doctored to protect it. The crowds were good, the TV audiences huge, and more day-night Tests will surely be scheduled soon.

Which leads us back to Australia's greatest triumph of 2015: a day-night win over New Zealand, though this time at the MCG, this time with a white ball, and this time in coloured clothing. For the first time since 1992, the World Cup was held in Australia and New Zealand; back then, neither host made the final, but this time they both did. The group clash between the teams in Auckland set the scene tantalisingly, a tight game dominated by high-class swing bowling and won by New Zealand.

But when it came to the final, Australia dominated. Starc's fast, inswinging yorker bowled Brendon McCullum in the first over of the match, which set the tone. Starc would be Player of the Tournament for the way he controlled the white ball throughout, and James Faulkner would be Man of the Match in the final. Australia cruised to an anti-climactic seven-wicket win, but they didn't care how it happened. Clarke and his men were World Cup winners at home.

They had soared through the tournament with only one blip and Australia had their fifth title. This was truly something to savour, the first World Cup triumph since the golden era of Gilchrist, McGrath, Ponting, Hayden et al. To achieve the feat at home made it all the more special for Clarke, Starc, Warner, Watson, Haddin, Hazlewood, Finch, Faulkner, Smith, Maxwell and Johnson.

The one-wicket loss in Auckland was one of only seven matches Australia lost in 2015, from 33 games across all formats. The rest were all to England: three Tests, two ODIs and one T20 following the Ashes. Remarkably, it was the only T20 Australia played all year, the format irrelevant to the Australians in an Ashes and World Cup year. That will change next year with the World T20 in India, a box that Australia would desperately like to tick in 2016.

High point
On March 29, Clarke's Australians achieved one of the rarest feats in the game, one that only MS Dhoni's men in 2011 had managed before: winning a World Cup final in their own country. The significance of the achievement will perhaps only sink in for these players in coming years. It seemed fitting that it was Smith who hit the winning runs, for in a year of great change he is the man who will now take Australian cricket forward.

Low point
On August 6, Australia lost their heads and, effectively, the Ashes, in 18.3 crazy overs. The first morning of the fourth Test at Trent Bridge began with Alastair Cook winning the toss and sending Australia in; by drinks the score was 38 for 7. Soon, it was all out for 60. Stuart Broad's 8 for 15 was one of the most remarkable bowling displays in Ashes history. The urn was on its way to England.

New kid on the block
At 36, Voges is about as convincing a New Kid on the Block as the now 46-year-old Donnie Wahlberg, so this award has to go to Hazlewood. Australia's leading Test wicket-taker for the year, Hazlewood picked up 51 at 23.35, and his consistency made it hard to believe he had only debuted in Tests last December. Expect him to lead Australia's attack for years to come.

Fading star
Six men were lost to Test retirements in 2015, which has left Peter Siddle as the only current Test player to have debuted before the 2010s. In the past couple of years Siddle has seemed like the back-up the selectors only call upon when they're desperate, but this summer he returned and ticked over 200 Test wickets, reminding everyone that his accuracy is useful in building pressure. But at 31, and with the allrounder Mitchell Marsh often outdoing him for pace, it is hard to say how much international cricket Siddle has ahead of him.

What 2016 holds
The World T20 is the one trophy Australia have never won, and in India's spinning conditions it will be a major challenge for them to remedy that this year. There are also Test tours of New Zealand and Sri Lanka to see how Smith's new-look side handle foreign conditions, before the home summer and Tests against South Africa and Pakistan. At least one thing should change from 2015: it is hard to imagine there will be any Australian Test retirements this coming year.