England paceman Stuart Broad has kicked off the pre-Ashes sledging by claiming Australia\u2019s victory in 2021-22 was \u201ca void series\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Australia retained the Ashes after winning the first three Tests, the fourth was a draw and the hosts won the fifth by 146 runs to win the series 4\u20130.<\/a><\/p>\n However, according to Broad, the thrashing simply doesn\u2019t count.<\/p>\n \ufeff\u201dNothing was harsher than the last Ashes series,\u201d he told the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n \u201cBut in my mind I don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing about that series was high level performance because of the COVID restrictions. The training facilities, the travel, not being able to socialise.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve written it off as a void series.\u201d<\/p>\n As Pat Cummins and his team prepare to head to England for the forthcoming series, Broad believes that if Australia try to counter \u201cBazball\u201d with an aggressive approach of their own it will play into England\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n England, led by their head coach, Brendon McCullum, and captain, Ben Stokes, have reinvented Test cricket over the past year, winning ten of 12 matches with a gung-ho approach.<\/p>\n Broad, who returned to the Test team last summer after being dropped for England\u2019s tour to the Caribbean a year ago, thinks that if Australia stray from their tried-and-tested approach and attempt to mirror their rivals, it could be their downfall this summer.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be great for us if Australia try to take us on at our own game,\u201d the 36-year-old seamer told the Daily Mail. \u201cIf we can get them playing in a slightly different style, they could make mistakes and that would be brilliant for us.<\/p>\n \u201cSteve 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, \u2018Why are we not scoring quicker? Why are we not moving the game forward?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cWe leave [the spinner] Jack Leach\u2019s mid-on and mid-off in all the time and Stokesy basically says, \u2018You\u2019re not having them back. Let them keep hitting you.\u2019 And he\u2019s probably got more caught mid-offs now than lbws, so it\u2019s playing on minds. I\u2019d love Smith to dance down the track and sky one to mid-off early doors. That would be classic.\u201d<\/p>\n Broad has been in early-season action for Nottinghamshire, taking nine wickets at 21.88 in the two matches he has played. He is expected to play another couple of championship matches in May before England play Ireland in a four-day Test at Lord\u2019s starting on June 1.<\/p>\n Ashes preparations are going less smoothly for his fellow bowler Jofra Archer, who travelled to Belgium this month for surgery on his right elbow.<\/p>\n Archer, who is back with his Indian Premier League franchise, Mumbai Indians, previously underwent two operations last year on the troublesome elbow and suffered discomfort after playing in Mumbai\u2019s opening match of this year\u2019s tournament, which resulted in him missing their next five games.<\/p>\n After flying from Mumbai to Antwerp to see Dr Roger van Riet, a specialist elbow surgeon who also operated on the England bowler Mark Wood last year, Archer returned to action on Saturday for Mumbai\u2019s match against Punjab Kings and, although he failed to take a wicket, he appeared to be<\/p>\n pain-free and reached 90mph.<\/p>\n Originally published as Ashes 2023: England\u2019s Stuart Broad kick starts verbal barbs to claim 2021 \u2018is a void series\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n