#i just wanted to say that august must have been beaten by his dad judging by those words

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Stuart Broad reflects on Australia abuse ahead of Ashes

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Stuart Broad reflects on Australia abuse ahead of Ashes

It is four years now since Stuart Broad arrived in Australia to be greeted with the kind of opprobrium usually reserved for war criminals. His misdemeanour? He had failed to walk for an edge during the first Ashes Test at Trent Bridge a few months earlier.

Normally, Australians take a relaxed attitude to walking, which is to say they don’t generally do it. But comments made by their coach Darren Lehmann at the end of England’s home win in 2013 ensured a molehill became Ayers Rock.

‘That was just blatant cheating,’ he frothed. ‘I just hope the Australian public give it to him right from the word go, and I hope he cries and goes home.’

Stuart Broad and dad Chris share fond memories of their respective Ashes triumphs

Broad reflects on the ‘challenge’ posed by the Australian support labelling him: Stuart Fraud’

Broad was unfazed, responding with six for 81 in the first innings at the Gabba before England unravelled. Now, as he prepares to return to Australia, he regards the episode with a wry detachment.

‘They called me Stuart Fraud,’ he says, smiling at the memory. ‘It was a proper campaign after their coach called for it at the end of the Oval Test match that August.

‘Australia had gone through a bit of a tough time. They’d lost a few Ashes on the bounce, then gone to India and got beaten, then got knocked out of the Champions Trophy, then we beat them 3-0.

Broad is tormented by the Australian crowd in 2014 after the cheating allegations were made

The Englishman will travel with his country hoping to secure a sixth Ashes triumph in eight

‘To be fair, he used his initiative, and said, ‘well, maybe the Australian public are losing a bit of faith in Australian cricket, so let’s give them something to get behind’.

‘Whether or not Lehmann meant it to get as big as it got, it was a really smart move. He said something about being a blatant cheat for nicking and not walking, whereas 22 players out of 25 in that series nicked it and didn’t walk. He was theoretically calling his own team the same. But it was quite a well-judged way to get the Australian media and public behind their team. I enjoyed it.’

Broad managed eight for 15 on the first morning at Trent Bridge in 2015

Listening in is Stuart’s dad, Chris, another Broad who got under Australian skins. As an opening batsman in Mike Gatting’s victorious Ashes team of 1986-87, he scored hundreds at Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne, adding another during the Centenary Test at Sydney just over a year later.

Chris is now a match referee, but in this discussion he is very much a former England player and proud father. And he is adamant that the abuse his son faced, with Australian fans wearing T-shirts declaring ‘Stuart Broad is a s*** bloke’, was a help rather than a hindrance.

And could join his dad (right) as second family member to play full part in an Ashes win

‘I loved it,’ he says. ‘And I knew he would love it as well, because he rises to a challenge. I thought Darren’s comments were said in haste, and hopefully he regretted them. But I knew Stuart would face the challenge head on. The fact that he got six wickets in that first Test was perfect. I’ve played in a side where Beefy (Ian Botham) could do exactly the same. I’m not comparing Stuart to Beefy, because he needs to get a few more runs, but he has that same attitude: someone’s having a go at me, so I’m going to front up and have a go back.’

Stuart doesn’t flinch at the jibe about his batting. ‘Dad’s right,’ he says, focusing on more complimentary stuff. ‘Whenever I get a challenge, or something’s put in front of me, I like to stand up to it.

JOE ROOT’S ASHES SQUAD 

Root, Cook, Stoneman, Malan, Ballance, Vince, Moeen, Crane, Foakes, Bairstow, Stokes, Woakes, Broad, Anderson, Ball, Overton

‘The Gabba in particular was very loud, with Michael Clarke telling Jimmy Anderson he’d get a broken arm. But I realised as the tour went on that Australian fans and the public respect people who give it a good crack. You end up smiling and singing along. By the end I was singing ‘Stuart Broad’s a w*****’.

‘If you have it sung all day at you, it becomes ingrained. I remember sitting on the team bus on the way back and whistling the tune…’

So how does one of England’s most senior players feel about returning to the lion’s den?

Chris briefly interjects: ‘Bring it on!’ Then Stuart steps in. ‘Every player who steps on the plane to Australia should prepare themselves for some stick,’ he says. ‘I was obviously the face of that abuse, but every England player who went to the boundary got songs sung about them.

The Englishman will travel with his country hoping to secure a sixth Ashes triumph in eight

Chris Broad has so far outdone his son by hitting four centuries in six tests Down-Under while Stuart Broad has played in 14 more

‘It’s as close as we get to being a Premier League footballer playing away from home. I knew it was coming, so I prepared for it. I read Sir Alex Ferguson’s book, where he talks about how Arsenal’s Patrick Vieira was the player the Old Trafford faithful gave the most stick to. He said to Patrick it was the biggest compliment the Old Trafford fans can give you, because if they’re not threatened, they won’t even bother with you.

‘Whether that was relevant to me, I took it as my mindset: if they’re giving me stick, maybe they think I’m all right, maybe they think I’m a danger. When I was getting shouted at, it was like, oh you know my name, that’s a good start.’

England fly to Australia on Saturday, and Broad junior is already partly there in his head. He has been bowling alone at Lord’s with the Kookaburra ball used in Australia, and plans to imagine David Warner at the other end when he bowls to Alastair Cook in the nets — regardless of the fact that two more different opening batsmen may never have existed.

And, above all, he knows England must get off to a good start in Brisbane on November 23 if they are to win their sixth Ashes series out of eight.

Chris still recalls the eve of the 1986-87 series, when English journalist Martin Johnson produced his oft-quoted assessment. ‘There are only three things wrong with the English team,’ he wrote. ‘They can’t bat, they can’t bowl and they can’t field.’ In the event, they exceeded expectations on all three fronts.

‘That first Test was where Botham got his 130-odd,’ says Chris. ‘And you knew the night before, when he got up and said, ‘right, this is where the tour gets serious’, he meant it. [David] Gower got runs, [Allan] Lamb got runs. They knew when to perform. It’s about your senior players — aka S. Broad — being able to stand up and take some of the flak, to go out and perform.’

And drew upon the ‘buzz’ that drives him to succeed and perform to his best

After the first day of the 2013-14 series Stuart walked in to the press conference clutching a copy of Brisbane’s Courier Mail, whose contribution to Lehmann’s clarion call had been to refer to Broad as ‘the English medium-pacer’ and replace photos of him with a ghostly white silhouette. It was tabloid banter at its most remorseless.

‘It’s predictable that the Australian media will get behind their own team,’ he says. ‘I’m slightly disappointed we’ve not had Glenn McGrath’s 5-0 prediction already. But we need to make sure we have that strong inner belief.

‘It may sound wishy-washy, but you need that group not to believe what the Australian media will write about their players. They’re always going to build them up.’

Stuart is on something of a personal mission. His part in the 2010-11 series, when Andrew Strauss’s side won three Tests by an innings, was limited to two games because of injury. Then came the 2013-14 whitewash. Now, he can’t wait to lock horns once more with a team who brought him his greatest moment — an other-worldly spell of eight for 15 on the first morning at Trent Bridge in 2015, a game which secured the Ashes.

ENGLAND’S OZ ITINERARY

November 2017

November 4-5: 2-day tour match, England v WA XI, WACA, Perth, 10.30am

November 8-11: 4-day tour match (D/N), England v CA XI, Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, 2.00pm

November 15-18: 4-day tour match, England v CA XI, Tony Ireland Stadium, Townsville, 10.00am

November 23-27: 1st Test, England v Australia, Gabba, Brisbane,10.00am

December 2017

December 2-6: 2nd Test, England v Australia (D/N), Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, 2:00pm

December 9-10: 2-day tour match, England v CA XI, Richardson Oval, Perth, 10:00am

December 14-18: 3rd Test, England v Australia, WACA Ground, Perth, 10:30am

For more information on the England squad and their Ashes preparations, visit the official ECB website, here.

‘It should excite you and drive you forward to make sure you are at the peak of your powers come November 23,’ he says. ‘Because if you don’t want to impress on that stage, you shouldn’t be on the tour.

‘You have to have that buzz: this is what you train for, and when you retire you don’t get feelings like this. Just enjoy it.’

Win this time under Joe Root, and Stuart will become the second member of his family to have played a full part in an Ashes win in Australia. For Chris, man of the series three decades ago, that triumph defined his career.

‘Without a doubt,’ he says. ‘I sometimes look back and think that being really successful on your first tour overseas was the wrong way of doing it. It went downhill from there. But I wouldn’t take it away. I loved every moment.

‘There are an awful lot of people who never get to play for England, or to go to Australia and achieve an Ashes success. I’ve been in that side and experienced that, and it is a fantastic experience. I wish the guys all the luck in the world.’

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