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Stuart Broad has nudged the pre-Ashes chatter up a notch, suggesting the hosts are about to field “the worst Australian team since 2010 when England last won, and it’s the best English team since 2010”. The freshly retired quick made the comment on the BBC podcast For The Love of Cricket, co-hosted with Jos Buttler, and it was hard to miss the jab.
Six weeks still remain before the first Test in Perth, yet the verbal sparring is already landing thick and fast. In the previous fortnight, Zak Crawley admitted the very word Bazball “winds” Australia up, Joe Root hinted this trip offers his “best chance” to win Down Under and Michael Atherton suggested the Cummins injury has left Australia “panicking”. The usual back-and-forth, then, but Broad’s record makes his words cut a little deeper.
The numbers are stark. Since 2006-07, Australia have dished out 5-0 drubbings twice and 4-0 wins twice. Only 2010-11—a 3-1 England triumph—spoils the clean sheet. That winter, as Broad recalls, Australia were in flux: big names gone, a revolving door of quicks, no nailed-on spinner.
“It’s actually not an opinion, it’s fact,” Broad insisted. “So those things match up to the fact it’s going to be a brilliant Ashes series.” He was responding to David Warner, who predicted a 4-0 home win on the basis that Australia are “playing for the Ashes while England are playing for a moral victory”.
Broad’s case centres on uncertainty in Australia’s top order and the depth—or lack of it—in their fast-bowling queue. Pat Cummins has already hinted he may skip the first Test, aiming to be 100 per cent later in the series. Scott Boland, once the surprise destroyer at the MCG, no longer feels the same unknown quantity.
“When have we ever, since 2010, been discussing who is going to bat No. 1, 2, 3, 6, 8 and who is going to be the spare bowler for Australia? You’re always going in there going: ‘well, the Aussies, they’re really strong. They’ve just got the same bowlers, the same team’,” Broad said. “But in 2010, when they were trying to replace [Glenn] McGrath, [Shane] Warne, [Matthew] Hayden, [Justin] Langer, they didn’t have a spinner. They changed the seamers all the time, and they had a bit of a mixed match of batters. So I don’t think anyone could argue that it’s their weakest team since 2010.”
Those words will not go unheard in the home dressing-room. A couple of senior Australian players have, privately at least, acknowledged England look stronger than usual. Mark Wood and Jofra Archer are both fit—on paper a frightening prospect—but both have logged more rehab weeks than overs recently. Managing them through five Tests remains England’s puzzle piece.
Root heads in as the world’s No. 1 ranked batter yet, oddly, without a Test century in Australia after three previous tours. If he is serious about lifting the urn in January, that ghost has to be laid to rest early. Then there’s Harry Brook, fresh off a mountain of white-ball runs and “10 hundreds” in all formats last winter. England like the look of him at No. 5; Australia, inevitably, will probe that new-tourist technique with the Kookaburra.
Former opener Chris Rogers, now coaching domestically, offered a cooler assessment. “There’s still a lot of quality in this Australian squad,” he said on local radio. “Yes, spots are open at the top and back end of the order, but the core of Smith, Labuschagne, Starc and Hazlewood is hard to dismiss.”
That sounds about right. England’s camp emits quiet confidence, carried forward from the 2023 2-2 stalemate at home. Australia, champions of the World Test Championship, know their own strengths but can’t avoid the conversation around fresh faces. We may, for once, have genuine uncertainty rather than the usual home-series inevitability.
Either way, the next month includes two warm-ups for England, selection calls on Ben Foakes versus Jonny Bairstow behind the stumps, and the all-too-familiar battle to keep Wood and Archer ticking over. Australia, meanwhile, will be keen for Cummins to prove the side strain is old news, and to settle on a No. 3—Cameron Bancroft and Matt Renshaw both doing the rounds.
Broad, now swapping the new ball for a microphone, will watch all of that unfold from the commentary box. Few understand the Ashes stage better; fewer still resist a pre-series prod. Whether his “fact” stands up, the cricket starts in Perth on 28 November and that will do the real talking.
