REVEALED: What Stuart Broad said to Australian players after THAT controversial Jonny Bairstow wicket at the Ashes… as the England icon spills the beans in new book ‘Bazball’
- One of the summer’s most memorable Ashes moments was Bairstow’s dismissal
- England icon Stuart Broad reveals what he said to the Aussies after that wicket
- Bazball: The Inside Story of a Test Cricket Revolution by Lawrence Booth and Nick Hoult will be published by Bloomsbury on October 26
One of the memorable moments of this summer’s Ashes was the controversial second-Test dismissal of Jonny Bairstow, who had stepped out of his crease thinking the ball was dead only for Australia wicketkeeper Alex Carey to throw down the stumps.
It sparked rage in the Lord’s Long Room – and a Ben Stokes boundary blitz – before England fell to defeat.
Now, in this extract from a new book on Bazball co-written by Mail Sport writer and Wisden Editor Lawrence Booth, England firebrand Stuart Broad reveals exactly what he said to the Australians…
With England six down and still 178 short, Bairstow had been replaced in the middle by Broad, forming with his captain a challenging combination for the Australians: Ben Stokes, looking to take his anger out on the bowlers, and Broad, the arch Aussie baiter who had never been forgiven for refusing to walk at Trent Bridge in 2013.
Now, he had a free hand to wind them up, and the support of nearly 30,000 spectators.
A huge moment of this summer’s Ashes was the bizarre dismissal of Jonny Bairstow (right)
Carey threw the ball back at the stumps when Bairstow had wandered out of his ground
Stuart Broad reveals exactly what he said to the Australians from new book on Bazball
He told Carey: ‘That’s all you’re ever going to be remembered for, that.’ He repeated the taunt. Carey replied: ‘Yeah.’ Broad then turned to Cummins: ‘Literally, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen in cricket, and those boos are for you.’ And he tapped his bat inside the crease at the end of each over, shouting ‘in’, as if fooling around on the beach.
Three weeks later, Broad leans back in his chair in the Old Trafford media centre and spills out the story as if giving evidence in the witness box, forensically going through every moment. It does not require a Perry Mason cross-examination to elicit the details.
Bazball: The Inside Story of a Test Cricket Revolution by Lawrence Booth and Nick Hoult will be published by Bloomsbury on Oct 26
‘You could tell there was a bit of anger brewing, even a minute after the decision, which maybe connected with my red mist when I got out there,’ he says. ‘When I saw it on the screen in our dressing-room, I stood up and thought: “what’s happened there?” I thought, “they’re going to revoke that, surely” – it was just a given. There’s no way they’ll keep that. And when they did, the crowd booed.
‘I wasn’t really that angry. I’ve seen loads of things on the cricket field. But it was a good way of getting involved, creating a bit of chaos and putting doubt in their mind. Because ultimately they’d won the game at that point.
‘So it was to try to take them away from what they were doing, and cause carnage. That was our only way of getting a win – we needed nearly 200. And it worked. It affected them, and they bowled differently. They were very stand-offish.
‘You could almost see the cogs turning, and they were like: “could we have done something differently here?” I was saying: “I’ve never heard Lord’s like this – these are cricket fans, listen to what they think of your decision.”’
‘I pointed at Pat [Cummins, Australia captain] quite a lot. I was shouting: “You hear all these boos – they’re for you.” Again, I didn’t really believe it – it was just a way of me changing the game up and seeing what would happen.
Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja got into a heated argument with a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club in Lord’s Long Room after Bairstow’s dismissal
‘At lunch, Stokesy had got his hundred – there was a massive cheer when we walked in the Long Room first. Then we turned our corner. I’ve been booed by 50,000 people at the Gabba, and I reckon the Long Room was louder.
‘It was unbelievable. I was like, wow! Then we saw Sky’s most-watched Twitter clip ever: the members having a go at the Aussies. I couldn’t hear what they were saying – the boos drowned it out. I’d never heard boos like that.’
Was there tension in the players’ dining-room? ‘I wasn’t there, because I was batting, but I’ve heard about it. The awkward thing about lunch is you’ve got a table where England sit, then a little gap, then a table where the Aussies sit.
‘In the middle, there’s a TV on the wall. They were obviously showing it on Sky. All the players were watching it, including Jonny. He hadn’t been up for lunch all week – he always has it in his spot in the dressing-room. But he went up that day to see what was going on.
‘I think Zak [Crawley] was… not winding Jonny up, but going: “I can’t believe they’ve done that. They can’t be happy with that.” I think he said: “You should ask them if they’re happy with that.”
‘Within point five of a second, Jonny says: “You happy with that, lads?” They were like: “Yeah, pretty happy.” But the members were lined up all the way from their changing-room to the lunch room as well. They must have thought: “have we got this one slightly wrong, maybe?”
Before lunch, Stokes moved to his hundred with three successive pulls for six off Cameron Green. After it, he hit the second ball, from Hazlewood, for six more, this time down the ground.
Broad claimed he’s ‘never heard boos like that’ as the Long Room turned on the Australians
‘Smith dropped him in the same over at deep backward square on 114, but he kept hitting out, even with nine on the fence. And while Broad was busy annoying the Australians, Stokes preferred a menacing silence.
‘He didn’t say a word,’ says Broad. ‘He was revving me up. I was saying: “Do you think I’ve got to calm down here, Stokesy?” He said: “No, keep going. I think they’re properly rattled.” The Aussies weren’t talking to each other. They were just turning round and bowling. I was just being that facetious prat that I turn into on the odd occasion.
‘[Josh] Hazlewood was bowling into the wind with the short boundary, so I said to him: “It’s nice the captain bowling you at this end, isn’t it? Bet he’ll drop you next week. He’ll bowl that end, and you’ll get dropped. I promise you. You watch.”
‘[Mitchell] Starc told me to eff off at one stage. It was me in red-mist, competitive mode.’
Bazball: The Inside Story of a Test Cricket Revolution by Lawrence Booth and Nick Hoult will be published by Bloomsbury on October 26
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