Inspired by England’s rugby players stunning a partisan Welsh crowd in the opening match of the Six Nations, Stuart Broad is targeting an equally audacious upset for the country’s cricketers in Melbourne next Saturday.
Broad rose early on Saturday morning to watch the final, enthralling seven minutes from the Millennium Stadium in his Sydney hotel room. This Saturday in front of a packed-out MCG, England’s cricketers face an even tougher test when they take on Australia in their opening match of the World Cup.
The form lines are not good for Eoin Morgan and his team: England have lost eight of their past nine one-day internationals against Australia, including three defeats in the recent tri-series. However, Broad is daring to dream. “We’ve put in a lot of work in the last month and we seem to be in a pretty good place,” he said. “We haven’t got those back-to-back wins that we want or the beating of Australia but there’s no better time than Saturday.”
For sceptical fans back home, there may not be much incentive to stay up through the night to watch the match given it starts at 3.30am UK time. Broad, though, has some advice for those floating voters. “I’d get my sleep in early and watch the end of it and see the result,” he said. “England v Australia, MCG, start of a World Cup, it will be one of the biggest games of our careers.
“It’s not a case of if you lose, you’re out. It’s not one of those games. But we want to start the World Cup in a good position. It’s going to be an enthralling game. Australia will be heavily supported I imagine at the MCG and we’ll be going out firing up and trying to play a free-flowing game.
“It would be nice for us to win and put down a marker. We would have liked to win one of the Tri-Series games. But we have a chance on Saturday. There’s an inner confidence in this group that something good could happen.”
England are likely to go into the match with six players who have never played in a World Cup. It will be a critical test for a young team for whom beating Australia appears an alien concept. Yet Broad, a hate figure during the last Ashes tour thanks to his refusal to walk during the 2013 Trent Bridge Test against Australia, believes the electric atmosphere at a sold-out MCG should act as a huge motivation. “It will be quite intimidating for everyone,” he said.
“I was lucky in one way that I went through it a bit last winter but 90-odd thousand at the MCG will be 90% Australia. It will be intimidating. But that should give you butterflies of excitement. You don’t get to play in front of those sort of crowds all the time so it should fill you with excitement and it will be about controlling that.
“That is part and parcel of international sport. Sometimes you turn up at a county game and you have to fire yourself up, you have to get the beans going. Saturday will all be about controlling the emotion. Just being in the stadium will be phenomenal. A chance to play in it will be breathtaking. Not many of the guys will have played in front of that many people and won’t again. What you look for in the mornings – you don’t want a lot of quiet. You want music on in the changing room, sort of thing.”
Broad has had a smoother ride in Australia on this tour, the previous antipathy having seemingly dissipated. “There are still memories of last year but it has died down,” the 28-year-old said. “I don’t think the media is as pumped up to find a villain.”
Asked whether that was because of the way he handled the abuse – soaking it up and performing well with the ball – Broad said: “Maybe a little. I don’t think it affected me a huge amount, in fact it excited me. Pumped me up. Saturday is a big one to keep my emotions and stuff in check because, for everyone, the crowd will be lively.”
As a senior player, along with Ian Bell and Jimmy Anderson, part of Broad’s job will be to make sure the younger players are relaxed. “For sure,” he said. “Because, hopefully, in five weeks we’ll be walking out again in the World Cup final. So to have the experience of Saturday – and hopefully a winning experience – will put us in a great place. We should welcome it because getting that game in, we should be looking forward to five weeks’ time. If we just walk out in a World Cup final not having played in front of 90-odd thousand, the nerves will get the better of you.”
England will fine tune their World Cup preparations with two warm-up matches in Sydney, the first against West Indies on Monday and then Pakistan on Wednesday. Gary Ballance, the Yorkshire batsman, could play a part in one of those following his recovery from a fractured finger in the first week of the tour. “If I get the chance I’ll be fine to play,” he said.
