Australia’s broadside team is its worst since 2010 as pre-Ashes barbs fly

The pre-Ashes barbs continue to fly, with Stuart Broad saying England will face “probably the worst Australian team since 2010” on tour this winter.

The former England bowler’s claim was in response to Broad’s Ashes foe David Warner – who predicted a 4-0 win for the hosts. ‘Like the captain [Pat Cummins] doesn’t play, they might win one game,” Warner said.

Australia have not lost an Ashes match at home since beating England 3-1 in 2010/11. Their 5-0 win three years later – after seven defeats in the previous nine Tests – was followed by 4-0 Ashes victories in 2017-18 and 2021-2022.

However, the No. 1-ranked Test side, who have lost just one of their past 13 bilateral series, go into the upcoming assignment with uncertainty over the composition of their top order and the fitness of Cummins, who is unlikely to feature in the first Test in Perth due to a back injury.

“It’s very, very difficult to win in Australia as an England team, or any team for that matter,” Broad said on his podcast For The Love Of Cricket. “Australia has to be a big favourite.

“Australia are under the most pressure because they are expected to win. They are brilliant domestically, but they have question marks about their team and question marks about the suitability of their captain. You wouldn’t be strange if you thought – it’s not actually an opinion, it’s a fact – it’s probably the worst Australian team since 2010, when England last won. And it’s the best England team since 2010. So those things equate to the fact that it’s going win.” to be a brilliant Ashes series.

“Australia has been so consistent for a long time that you just knew who was going to open the bat, who was going to bat, what bowlers were there, and they don’t have them. The situation is very similar to 2010-2011, when England won there. The fact is that, overall, Australia has to be bad to lose in Australia and England has to be very good. England have a good chance of being very good and Australia has a decent chance of being bad are.”

A question for England remains their choice at number 3, with Ollie Pope and Jacob Bethell contesting the spot. Alastair Cook, whose 766 runs won the tourist series 15 years ago, believes it would be “strange” for Ben Stokes’ side to part ways with Pope, who has been a regular at the first drop for the past three years.

“I would hit Ollie Pope at three,” Cook said. “I think it’s a pretty easy decision. You’ve got someone who has been part of this build-up for three or four years. He’s captain of the side, he’s played some extraordinary innings for England and he’s a hundred-scorer. He knows how to score hundreds in first-class cricket. If you get rid of him now I think it changes the whole dynamic of what they’ve built over the last few years, of how confident they’ll feel, those top seven.”

Referring to Bethell as “an incredibly talented player,” Cook said: “It would be a big, big gamble [to pick him] because if that doesn’t work, where do you move again, to someone you just got rid of? They’ve invested so much in people like Pope and… [Zak] Crawley that it would be so strange to change it now.

Pope has been replaced by Harry Brook as England vice-captain, but Cook believes that will take the pressure off the Surrey right-hander.

“They have been proactive about that, thinking that if there is an injury to Ben Stokes, they have a man in Harry Brook who can [captaincy of the] one-day side and everyone has seen that he seems well suited for it. That will only take the pressure off Ollie Pope. I don’t think it will undermine him. I’m sure it must have hurt him because anytime you’re removed from a leadership role it wouldn’t be ideal, but I don’t think it undermines him.

Cook will be in Australia as part of TNT’s coverage of the series, and will be joined by fellow Ashes winners Steven Finn and Graeme Swann as on-the-ground experts. The channel will provide its own audio feed, but will adopt a hybrid model, with commentators Alastair Eykyn and Rob Hatch working off-site in Britain, while Cook, Finn and Swann will provide co-commentary from Australia. Ebony Rainford-Brent is also part of the commentary team working off-site, with on-site reporting presented by Becky Ives.