Stuart Broad’s hopes of retiring in a blaze of glory threatened to go awry as his old rival David Warner helped Australia puncture the party atmosphere on day four of the final Ashes Test.
The stage seemed set for Broad to bow out in style following his shock announcement on Saturday night, as he was awarded a guard of honour by the tourists and then smashed his final ball as a batter into the crowd for six.
That left Australia chasing a mammoth 384 to win at the Kia Oval, 121 more than the ground record, placing England as heavy favourites as Broad began the chase for wickets alongside 41-year-old birthday boy James Anderson.
But Australia spoiled the party as Warner (58no) and Usman Khawaja (69no) carried the score to 135 without loss. In all England sent down 38 overs without a single concrete chance before rain brought an early end to proceedings midway through the afternoon session.
Broad bowled six overs for 15 but was unable to give the crowd the moment they wanted – an 18th career dismissal of Warner. England still need 10 wickets on the final day of an absorbing series, chasing a 2-2 scoreline and a share of the spoils, but there is now a real chance that the visitors could win outright on English soil for the first time in 22 years.
It would be a fine achievement if they managed it, requiring the eighth-highest fourth-innings chase in Test history, the second-best from an Australian side and the second-best in this country.
The start of the day belonged to Broad, the man who the south London public had turned out to see. Australia showed their respect for England’s most prolific Ashes wicket-taker by lining up at the boundary edge and clapping him through as he and Anderson emerged to complete their last-wicket stand. Anderson, who has vowed to carry on despite having four years on his partner, made a point of taking a different route.
The pair refused to take easy singles off the first five balls of Mitchell Starc’s first over, a seemingly curious ploy but one that cashed out when Broad stepped away and smashed the seamer over midwicket for six. That would be his final stroke as a professional cricketer, with Anderson lbw to Todd Murphy in the next over.
Both men dashed off as they rushed to get their hands on the new ball, with clouds rolling in on cue. Warner produced an uncertain jab off Broad’s first delivery, spraying it off the inside edge, but the Dukes was refusing to swing despite the overhead conditions.
Broad’s first spell did not not create any real danger, though he managed a few theatrical reactions to suggest otherwise, but he was not alone. Anderson and Chris Woakes fared similarly, with the 10th over of the innings thrown to Moeen Ali. Mark Wood, meanwhile, saw his 90mph pace go surplus to requirements.
He had not been certain to bowl at all due to a groin injury, but worked through five gentle overs before giving way to Joe Root. Warner and Khawaja were focused on the task at hand, picking off a steady diet of loose deliveries and reaching 75 by lunch.
Warner hinted that he was ready to go through the gears at the start of the afternoon session, clattering Anderson high over mid-off with a clean swing of the bat that took the score to 92 – the highest opening stand of the series.
Anderson sent down a wild beamer at his next visit, with Warner flopping to the ground as he avoided injury and collected four deflected runs into the bargain. With Root beginning to leak boundaries at the Vauxhall Road End, Stokes finally sent for Wood after 33 overs.
The Durham quick rapped Khawaja on the helmet as he ducked into a skiddy bouncer, but England could not get prevent the game slipping away from them. Khawaja was first to 50 in 110 balls, with Warner a couple of minutes behind but 20 deliveries quicker.
The weather intervened midway through the session but, while rain ruined England’s victory charge at Old Trafford last week, this felt like a welcome break for a home side who were losing the initiative with every run scored.
Tape ball programme can help England find unorthodox talent – Richard Gould
The England and Wales Cricket Board hopes to unearth a new seam of talent beyond the game’s traditional league structure with a national tape ball scheme that allows players to thrive without “whites, willow and leather”.
The practice of using a soft ball wrapped in electrical tape to aid swing and variable bounce is a common one in Asia, where it has helped produce express pace bowlers like Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi and spinners such as Rashid Khan and Shakib-al-Hasan, but has been slow to enter the mainstream conversation in the United Kingdom.
The Chance to Shine charity has long pioneered tape ball cricket as part of its engagement hubs and now, with the ECB keen to live up to its lofty aspiration of becoming the most inclusive team sport in the country, it is at the heart of a new core cities programme designed to engage ‘diverse communities in urban areas’.
Speaking at a launch event where games were hosted in a warehouse space in Birmingham, ECB chief executive Richard Gould was optimistic about reaching out to those with an interest in cricket but limited access to the pavilions and prepared pitches in the club setup.
“We talk about clubs with picket fences around them. In the past that has been seen as the preserve of the ECB. We’ve missed a complete trick on that,” he said.
“When we talk about the recreational game we’re not just talking about Premier League clubs and village cricket clubs now. We’re talking about all forms of cricket that take place.
“You can play the game anywhere, any time, with anybody, in any environment you want. You don’t have to have whites, willow and leather to do it. You can just pick up a bat and a ball and have some fun.”
As well as fulfilling its remit of reaching out to all comers at a grassroots level, Gould also believes there are benefits to finding cricketers with different styles who have learned the game outside the traditional, private-school heavy pathways.
“Without doubt there are,” he said. “We have to get out and try to find the talent. More to the point, we have to try and find talent in areas that we haven’t normally looked for it.
“I do think county pathways will be looking to make sure they don’t miss out on this talent. It’s just about punching through all of our normal procedures and finding ways to both get people in the game and unearthing that talent which may be unorthodox and great.”
Meg Lanning: Exercise obsession and not enough fuel led to Australia retirement
Former Australia captain Meg Lanning revealed her “obsession” with exercise and not eating enough precipitated her surprise international retirement late last year.
Lanning was at the helm of one of the most dominant eras the sport has ever seen but she missed last year’s Ashes for medical reasons and pulled the plug on her Australia career in November.
She opened up about her hidden health issues on the Howie Games podcast, explaining that running up to 90 kilometres a week coupled with eating two small meals a day led to her dropping from 64kg to 57kg.
View this post on Instagram“I was over-exercising and under-fuelling,” the 32-year-old said. “It wasn’t a physical thing. I’ve always been really physically active and liked that side of it, but it became a bit of an obsession.
“I’d maybe eat a couple of meals a day if I was lucky but they weren’t significant. Initially it didn’t start off as a deliberate thing, it just became a bit of a new normal.
“But it slowly crept into conscious decisions because essentially I felt good.
“I wasn’t getting injured like everybody was telling me I was going to do. It sort of just spiralled and I was in denial, even though everybody kept telling me something wasn’t quite right.
“I was not in a place to be able to go on tour and play cricket and give the commitment levels that were required for that Ashes series, mentally and physically.”
Lanning, who led Australia to five World Cup titles in total and Commonwealth Games glory in 2022, said her struggle was not officially diagnosed as an eating disorder.
“It wasn’t labelled as that but I was exercising a lot and I wasn’t eating enough to fuel that – it was a bit out of whack,” Lanning said.
“It was a bit of control because I felt very out of control with what my future looked like. I felt like I was in control of that and that made me feel better.”
Lanning sought help from medical professionals after also struggling with insomnia and continues to play domestically, while she has been signed for London Spirit for The Hundred this year.
“I dreaded night time because I knew I would go to bed and not be able to sleep,” she said. “That would make me so mad. I would just get more angry with myself. If you can’t sleep, you can’t do anything.
“I feel like I’m in a good spot now. Cricket is still part of what I do. But I wasn’t cut out for the international touring schedule and what came with all of that.”
Yorkshire not in ECB’s new ‘Tier 1’ revamp of women’s professional game
Yorkshire will have to wait until 2027 to take part in the England and Wales Cricket Board’s new ‘Tier 1’ revamp of the women’s professional game, after eight other counties were selected to lead the way.
Durham, Essex, Hampshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Somerset, Surrey and Warwickshire have been chosen as hosts, with the governing body abolishing the existing regional structure in favour of alignment with the first-class counties.
The blow to Yorkshire, for whom this is a further setback after several turbulent years on and off the field, has been mitigated by a promise to bring them into an expanded competition in the third season.
Glamorgan have been given the same assurances and both will receive additional funding to help build their pathway.
But there will be no ‘Tier 1’ cricket at Lord’s in the foreseeable future, with MCC declining to put itself forward and Middlesex among those overlooked. Sussex have also been left on the outside looking in, despite a long and strong commitment to the women’s game.
They will be hoping to be included as the elite level continues to grow, with the ECB outlining plans to further expand to 12 teams by 2029.
ECB chief executive Richard Gould said: “I’d like to congratulate those counties who have been successful in their bids.
“I’m also delighted that in light of the support we have seen and the strength of the bids we have considered, we can accelerate our plans, including new top tier professional teams at Glamorgan and Yorkshire by 2027 with a further two being introduced by 2029.
“More professional teams means more women able to make a career out of being a cricketer, more role models to inspire future generations, and more of the country having a women’s professional team to follow nearby.
“I recognise today’s announcement will also be disappointing to those who haven’t been successful at this stage. But with the new three-tier structure we are introducing, there is still a huge opportunity for them to compete in the other tiers so together we can all realise the potential of women’s domestic cricket.”
Beth Barrett-Wild, the ECB’s director of the women’s professional game, praised the calibre of offers from around the country.
“At the start of this tender process we challenged the first-class counties to show us their vision for the women’s professional game and to demonstrate their desire and commitment to becoming one of our professional Tier 1 clubs,” she said.
“Over the last couple of months it’s been brilliant to see the time and energy that has gone into the submissions, and I’ve been hugely impressed by the quality and ambition of the bids.
“It’s clear that the game is united in wanting to take the women’s professional game forward. I’m energised about what comes next, for the counties themselves, for the players, for fans and for everyone who wants to see women’s cricket continue its accelerated trajectory.”
The ECB has put £5million per year of new funding into the women’s domestic set-up, rising to £8million when Yorkshire and Glamorgan come aboard.
It estimates a potential increase of 80 per cent in the number of professional female players.
There will be no promotion or relegation between 2025 and 2028, allowing the new three-tier system to bed in.
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