Broad’s up for Ashes
STUART Broad’s declaration he is bound for the Ashes is music to Australian ears but the quality of the support cast remains the major concern.
Outstanding fast bowler Broad, keen to make the most of a career that is entering its final years, is the first big name to say he will be heading to Australia for a five-Test summer and England is hoping other players will follow his charismatic lead.
Broad is “100 per cent’’ convinced England will send a side to Australia but could not guarantee there would not be a string of withdrawals due to Covid-induced tensions and protocols.
Australia will simply urge England to keep picking players until it can fill a squad, not the ideal scenario but a necessary one in a series which means more than $200m to Australian cricket.
Broad said that as he was a 35-yearold with no children and he was not playing in the Indian Premier League, his plight was much different to younger family men in the squad who are fretting over Australia’s two weeks of hard quarantine.
“Because my fiancee Mollie [King] works, I am already resigned to the fact that she cannot be with me at any point – because by the time she has completed two weeks of quarantine she will have to be back on the radio,’’ Broad wrote in his Mail on Sunday column.
“That’s why I am committed to going. It’s a very different scenario if you are away from the start of the Indian Premier League this weekend or if you have kids.”
England will choose its Ashes squad in a fortnight after players make individual decisions on their availability after viewing the final draft of quarantine restrictions for the tour.
England is reportedly trying to lobby its way to a more relaxed quarantine system than the mandatory two weeks in a hotel room with perhaps an hour or two allowed out for training and other activities. If there are no relaxations, it seems certain there will be big-name withdrawals.
“Players can’t sign up to something unless they know what they are signing up for,” Broad said. “It is 100 per cent clear that an England team of some description will embark on the tour. But if another player told me they couldn’t commit, I would totally accept it.
“Let‘s try to make it as comfortable as possible for us because if you go somewhere like Australia and have to bunker down, you won’t enjoy being in one of the greatest places on earth – and aren’t going to win at cricket, either.”