Despite the 2021 Ashes loss being the harshest of his career, England quick Stuart Broad has bizarrely “written it off as a void series” due to the restrictions they faced throughout.
Due to Covid and international travel restrictions at the time, the touring English team had to undergo 14 days of quarantine at a resort and were confined to a bubble throughout the series.
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Although the visitors could lay some of the blame at the foot of Covid, they were comprehensively outplayed and copped a 4-0 thrashing at the hands of the Aussies.
Broad ranks that series as the worst of the lot, but remarkably claimed it doesn’t really count.
“Nothing was harsher than the last Ashes series,” Broad told the Daily Mail.
“But in my mind I don’t class that as a real Ashes. The definition of Ashes cricket is elite sport with lots of passion and players at the top of their game.
“Nothing about that series was high level performance because of the Covid restrictions. The training facilities, the travel, not being able to socialise.
“I’ve written it off as a void series.”
Broad won’t be able to use Covid as an excuse should England lose the Ashes on home soil in the coming months, with the first Test to begin on June 16.
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Since the last series, England has revamped their playing style under head coach Brendon McCullum, with the cricket world adopting the term ‘Bazball’ to describe the explosive and exciting style.
The 36-year-old quick is rubbing his hands at the prospect of taking on Australia with their new style in tow and has dared Pat Cummins’ side to match it.
“I think it would be great for us if Australia try to take us on at our own game,” Broad said.
“If we can get them playing in a slightly different style they could make mistakes and that would be brilliant for us.
“Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne and Usman Khawaja are all guys who like to bat time and accumulate so if we can nibble away at them and just get them thinking, ‘Why are we not scoring quicker, why are we not moving the game forward?’
“We leave Jack Leach’s mid-on and mid-off in all the time and (Ben) Stokesey basically says, ‘You’re not having them back. Let them keep hitting you.’
“And he’s probably got more caught mid-offs now than LBWs so it’s playing on minds. I’d love Smith to dance down the track and sky one to mid-off early doors. That would be classic.”
