September 1, 2019 The Mail on Sunday^ SPORT 109
Crazy drama of dressing
room was like being in
WWII tank! Now we can’t
waste Ben’s brilliance
I THOUGHT it was written in
the stars that Jimmy
Anderson (right) would come
back to win his 150th Test cap
at his home ground of Old
Trafford. Sadly, I was wrong
and it is not to be after his calf
injury flared up again playing
for Lancashire’s second XI.
Naturally, he will be
devastated. Sometimes sport
can be unfair, refusing to pay
you back for the hard workyou put in. We all know he did
all he could to get fit.
There will be a period now
when all the what-ifs will go
through his mind but knowing
Jimmy as I do, as someone
who has shared the new ball
with him for England dozens
of times, he will soon be
turning his focus to getting
his body in condition for the
two-Test tour of New Zealand
in November. From a teamperspective, you are
always going to feel the
loss of a player who
has 575 Test wickets to
his name but it also
shows how you need
an armoury of fast
bowlers, not just
one or two, if you
want to be
successful in
international
cricket.It’s not all over for Jimmy
Stuart Broad
READ HIM ONLY IN THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
I stared at the same bit of floor in
between balls, having done so once
and convinced myself it would be
lucky to keep doing so. Supersti-
tiously slipping into idiosyncratic
routines like this isn’t a new thing,
of course. Alastair Cook had a lucky
tennis ball he used to bounce.
But the drama of it... bloody hell.
I am not a religious person at all,
but I am convinced someone’s been
watching over English cricket this
summer because that World Cup
final and the one-wicket win in thethird Ashes Test have been
something else.
It was always very quiet until the
ball was played. Then noise filled
the room. One of Ben’s hits to long-
off, none of us could quite see. I
turned to Jos, who was in the cor-
ner, and from about an inch away
screamed in his face: ‘It’s gone for
six, it’s gone for six!’
We were all having to help each
other out if we saw where the ball
had gone. The delivery before Ben
was dropped at third man, he’dpulled one to midwicket. At
first I couldn’t see where it had
gone. Then, I thought David
Warner had caught it. Again I
was shouting: ‘Where is it?
Where is it?’ I knew when Rooty
started celebrating next to me.
After the World Cup final, I
spoke to Ben on the cricket pod-
cast I make with Stephen Fry
and he said that part of him had
wished he was watching because
being in the middle he didn’t get
the same experience. I now know
what he means.
That last few minutes was crazy.
I have seen that kind of tension
before: the Cardiff Ashes Test of
2009, hanging on in South Africa
twice with Graham Onions at the
crease the following winter. But
these feelings were different
because of the situation. We had to
win to stay in the Ashes. If we’d lost,
the next two Tests would have been
heartbreaking. So it had all the
drama of the others, with hope
weaved into the story. That accentu-
ated the emotions. It was hardly less
so when we watched the television
replay of the last hour with Stokesy
back in the changing room.
Since the Test I have spent a lot of
time in London, and the number ofpeople talking about the cricket
there is like nothing I’ve heard
before. That was great to see. Peo-
ple were piling into pubs to watch
it, apparently. What this summer of
cricket is doing for the game is
pretty special.BEN (NEARLY)
BOUNCED OUT
AFTERWARDS, because the chang-
ing rooms are so small, we sat
around the bath area, singing songs,
beers in hand. Joe Root then took us
out to the middle for our team talk.
We reflected on a period of time
that will go down in cricket history.
It was a very special innings from
Ben and a very special Test match.
We spoke about allowing the glory
of what we had just witnessed to
soak in, of being proud of the mind-
set and character of the team, but
also about the need for us to give a
lot more.
With the ground deserted and the
sun heading down on the horizon,
Jack Leach relived his dash for the
single that levelled the scores. Our
team WhatsApp group has barely
stopped with funny tweets about
Leachy and his steamed-up glasses,or social media reactions to the
video of Stokesy hitting the final
runs. I must have watched him
punch the air, with the crowd going
wild, about 50 times.
Later, when we got back to the
hotel to join our families, Stokes
walked into the bar with a big
McDonald’s bag full of food, wear-
ing his England training kit. The
bouncer was sceptical about letting
him in. He had to persuade the guy
that he was just dropping off some-
thing to his wife Clare and heading
to his room to get showered and
changed. Let’s face it, it would have
been a brave bouncer to stop him.OUR BATS MUST
COME ALIVE
SO WHERE are we now in the
series? Well, first, let’s remember
it’s only 1-1. There’s a lot of work to
do in the next two weeks. Equally,
it’s important to enjoy matches like
this one and try to use the momen-
tum we created in Leeds as we
move to Manchester.
There will be a lot of interest in
this match. People who enjoyed last
Sunday will be desperate for
Wednesday to arrive. From a play-
er’s point of view, we will have to
ensure our energy levels, our
excitement, our passion, is right at
the top level again.
And we mustn’t look too far ahead.
We can’t expect that same elation
on Wednesday afternoon. We will
have to break it down into individ-
ual hours to get a Test match win.
They are very hard to come by and
we have to be prepared to put in
five days’ hard graft at Old Traf-
ford to get the right result.
I have played in seven Ashes
series and the reason why this one
is so fascinating is because the
teams are so closely matched. Man
for man they are very similar.
It might be said that one bad ses-
sion, in which we were dismissed
for 67, hurt us in that third Test but
I would counter that it didn’t lead to
a defeat and the tendency to have a
bad couple of hours has been the
same for both teams so far.
Australia’s bad session with the
bat in the series came at Lord’s but
there wasn’t enough time to bowl
them out, so it didn’t cost them the
game. When they had a bad hour in
the field at Headingley, it did cost
them the game.
Both teams have huge strengths
in their bowling attacks and the
same weakness — being suscepti-
ble to losing wickets in clusters.
The two are interlinked, I believe,
because so far it has been two
world-class bowling units applying
pressure. Both batting units will be
desperate to find ways to counter-
act that now. The challenge for a
top-flight player is to find ways of
fighting back.ONE Australian who is back for
the fourth Test is Steve Smith.
Both he and Jofra Archer have
had a bit to say over recent
days, haven’t they? To me, this
is what Ashes cricket is about.
Blimey, if I was a 12-year-old kid,
I would want to watch Jofra bowl
to Smith on Wednesday morning.
There have been some awesome
personal battles in this series.
Josh Hazlewood at our top four,
me at Warner. It’s been Ashes
cricket at its absolute best, punch
after punch, and now it’s time for
us to ramp it up.