2015 Stuart casts spell
THROUGHOUT his career Stuart Broad has always had the ability to produce hot streaks that have proved match winners.
But even by his own high standards the one he hit yesterday was something special.
It was not just the numbers, as undoubtedly impressive and loaded with historical gravitas as they were, with eight victims coming at a cost of just 15 runs.
Only Jim Laker as an England player can look down on such numbers in Ashes combat.
No, it was the stage on which he chose to strut, with the Investec Series at stake and with his captain Alastair Cook challenging players on the eve of this match to “etch their names in history”.
Broad’s quite blistering display, bowling Australia out for 60, was so hot that by the end of a day that – thanks also to Joe Root who posted an unbeaten 124 – England fi nished with a lead of 214 with six wickets in hand.
Between them they delivered what was perhaps England cricket’s best day but also the Ashes on a plate.
It was more than Cook could have hoped for when he won the toss and put Australia in, even under a promising slab of light grey cloud and on a green- tinged strip.
But then again, this was a day on which even the scowling weather rolled over like a well- trained puppy when Cook wanted it to: brooding skies giving way to bright sunshine after an hour and 40 minutes of the morning session.
By that stage, Australia were all out and England were striding out to bat – only the fourth time in Test history that a side have put the opposition in and had to pick up their bats before lunch, Australia all out in 18.3 overs.
Broad started the ball rolling with two in his fi rst over, gave it another hefty spin in his second, third and fourth overs with another three wickets to leave Australia 29- 6, then fi nished it off with another three at the back end as Clarke’s shattered men entered the realms of farce.
To add to the tourists’ ignominy, extras with 14 fi nished as their most notable contributor.
Broad was irresistible and the catching in the slip cordon – a string of pearls that expanded to half a dozen as the edges fl ew – was superb.
Ben Stokes produced the catch of the series – one to rival Andrew Strauss’s second- slip catch here in 2005 – to stretch out a hand to where a seventh might have stood, his body virtually horizontal as he snapped fi ngers round the ball to Australia lasted just 18.3 overs ( or 111 balls) in what was the shortest completed fi rst innings in Test history. It was the fi rst time in Ashes history that sundries ( 14) have top- scored in an innings. This was only the fourth time a Test team has bowled fi rst and been batting by lunch on day one. Only one bowler has recorded better innings fi gures for England in the Ashes than Broad’s 8- 15, when Jim Laker took 10- 53 and 9- 37 at Old Trafford in 1956 for the best match fi gures ever. After a record 45 Test innings, Chris Rogers fi nally fell for his fi rst duck in Broad’s fi rst over. It is 17 years since an England player last took eight wicket in an innings ( Angus Fraser taking 8- 53 against West Indies).
SCOREBOARD
dismiss Adam Voges. It was thrilling stuff.
If one was being critical there was precious little value put on the Australian wickets with batsman after batsman playing with hard hands in front of their bodies, giving themselves no chance of mitigating the movement off the pitch or through the air.
A white fl ag waved, declined.
Broad, however, deserves huge credit for making the ball sing.
He started the day just one short of his 300th Test wicket and didn’t have to wait long for a milestone that elevated him to a select group of just fi ve men. It took just the third ball of the innings – a searing, seaming ball that straightened on
a
battle Chris Rogers and traced to Cook at fi rst slip. His last wicket of the day allowed him to draw level with Fred Trueman on 307.
It was, of course, all done in front of his home crowd with family present.
Broad, 29, has had such days before: in Ashes cricket, his 6- 50 at Chester- le- Street in 2013 similarly turned the match and there was 6- 81 in Brisbane in 2011 and 5- 37 at the Kia Oval in 2013.
Outside of this bilateral scrap there have been 7- 44, 7- 72, 6- 25 and 6- 46 to turn matches against New Zealand, West Indies and India ( twice). But this will surely be a fl ag- on- the- peak moment.
Root, hopefully, has his still to come but his comfortable stroll to his eighth century turned the screw tight on Australia.
In an ideal world he would have walked off with his Yorkshire team- mate Jonny Bairstow, whose 74 cemented his return to Test cricket, but the fall of the fourth wicket four overs from the end meant he did so with the nightwatchman, Mark Wood.
They will return with a lead that they will hope to stretch past 400.
The Ashes are not just within touching distance, they are already in Cook’s hands ready to be lifted above his head, and the fi reworks – indeed further fi reworks after yesterday – could be as soon as tomorrow.