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Broad: The moment where Australia grabbed the First Test back
Nicholas Quinlan • November 23rd, 2025 1:09 am
English cricketing great Stuart Broad believes that the wicket of Harry Brook was the moment when Australia was able to shift momentum in their win against England in the First Test.
The hosts managed to win by eight wickets in the final session of Day 2 in what has been an absolutely ridiculous way to begin the 2025/26 Ashes.
But coming into the start of the day, England appeared to have the advantage.
Having had Australia on 9/123 at the start of Day 2, they nabbed the wicket of Nathan Lyon to have them all out for 132, giving the visitors a lead of 40 runs.
And after a brief but shaky start, which saw England lose Zak Crawley in the first over seeing him bring up a pair, they steadied themselves to a 105-run lead with nine wickets remaining.
However, they would quickly implode as they proceeded to lose all their wickets for an additional 99 runs to set Australia a total of 205, which was chased down within a session thanks to an astonishing century courtesy of Travis Head.
During the fourth innings of the match, the 167-Test match player for England could only complement the Australian spirit and their ability to come back, having noted that the wicket of Harry Brook for a duck was the moment that lifted the Australian team.
“It’s just what Australia do,” Broad said on SEN Cricket’s live commentary of The Ashes.
“They are incredible at grabbing the game back in their favour when they are under the pump and struggling, particularly at home.
“But actually, all over the world. They’ve got an amazing competitive mentality as a collective.
“And you can feel it, as soon as Harry Brook got out and they can sense, ‘Okay, we’ve got two in two (overs) here and we’re going to go.
“And then they just gave no bad balls away, they squeezed, they brought their best bowler back on in Mitchell Starc, the crowd was up and just watching it, I felt that in the middle.
“But actually, sat in the stands, you could feel it even more.
“You’re like, this is what Australia does as a country, and this English team, yes, some of them have experienced it before, some haven’t.
“They just weren’t able to cope with it, as England haven’t been able to cope with it since 2010/11.
“So, England will be really frustrated in the fact that they got themselves in such a brilliant position.”
While there would be plenty of frustration from the English cricketing public that they let a golden opportunity slip from within their grasp, there is still a positive that they can take from this result, as Broad explained.
“But I guarantee that England will be looking at that sort of positive side of it,” he added.
“Okay, we’ve put ourselves in that position. So, what do we learn from the feelings that we had?
“We got ourselves into a position where WinViz was saying 75% (chance of victory for) England. That’s not been the case for a long time in Australia.
“So you drag every positive you can out of it.
“And even defending 200, you thought, ‘Okay, Australia are going to have to score the highest score of the game to win’
“And a freakish innings like Travis Head’s is just outrageous skill.”
Australia now takes a 1-nil lead in the five match series, with England yet to win a Test match down under since 2011.
Both sides will be getting ready for the Second Test, which will be played as a Day/Night match at the Gabba in Brisbane.
That begins on December 4 with SEN having LIVE coverage of every ball bowled through the series.
