Perhaps the best part of the big Stuart Broad set-piece on the second morning at Edgbaston, one of those moments where the wind seems to change, the dogs miaow, the birds fly backwards through the sky and the clock strikes Broad o’clock, was the introduction of mimicry, physical comedy, improv into the usual routine.
Broad was always going to do this at some point. He’s a montage bowler. Every Ashes has its sequence, from failing to walk, to Brisbane T-shirts, to hands-over-the-face human-meme stuff at Trent Bridge. This time the talk will be mainly about the dismissal of David Warner, because this has been the chief pre-series narrative; and Broad duly delivered here too, dismissing Warner for the 15th time in Test cricket.
But it was the ball after that provided the most brilliantly curated moment of sporting theatre, as Broad had Marnus Labuschagne, the No 1 batter in the world, caught behind first ball. This was a dismissal with three key ingredients. Energy and vibes (naturally). Long term mind-game planning. And finally, almost an afterthought here, a piece of brilliantly-executed skill with the ball.
The planning was key. It is two months since Broad announced the discovery of a devastating new delivery, the away-swinger. Even better this was an away-swinger tempered very specifically for this moment.
“It’s designed, to be honest, for Marnus,” Broad had dropped in, casually seeding the moment like a master wartime propagandist. Disappointingly, he stopped short of giving it a name. The Drifter. The Fader. Maybe even the Marnus, the ball that literally has your name on it.
Next there was the addition of physical comely to the moment. Labuschagne had marched to the wicket in that distinct fashion, the gait of an unforgiving 19th century geography teacher leading a troupe of seminary boys on a mid-afternoon trek to the Acropolis.
Part of Test match batting is about commanding space around you, a way of standing, of interacting with the angles and the noise. Labuschagne does this by fussing and twitching, diffusing his own energy about the place.
Here he detected some movement in the crowd, gesturing for a policeman to sit down. Broad joined in at the end of his run. Marnus gestured more frantically. At which point Broad did something very funny, turning to the crowd and mimicking Labuschagne’s movements, turning it into a pantomime. The crowd got it. There was a roar of laughter, a sense of the picture being tweaked, the colour contrast turned up.
Broad whirled his finger, signalling for the pre-delivery roar. This was where skill and planning began to intersect. The field was set for a ball coming in to Labuschagne, with a square leg and a straight short mid-on.
There is an element of false flag about fields to both Labuschagne and Steve Smith, who will always try to decrypt the code. In the event Broad produced the miracle out-swinger, full and a bit wide, a ball that really could have been left. Labuschagne flinched at it, edged and saw Jonny Bairstow take a fine catch, one-handed, as the ball died.
At which point the day just seemed to fall apart a little. Broad was off running, high-fiving, hurtling across the backdrop of leaping, whirling, people in the crowd.
The ball did swing, just enough. Nobody really knows what makes the ball move in England. Moisture, live grass, clouds overhead. Stuart Broad talking about stuff two months ago. Marnus stood there waiting, then finally walked, a man on the wrong end of a piece of very distinct sporting voodoo.
Broad had got Warner the ball before. And up to that point Australia had been making progress, Usman Khawaja already playing beautifully, as he would all day en route to a supreme hundred. But something was happening at the other end. Broad had bowled 25 balls to Warner, 23 of them dots. At which point Warner produced a candidate for the title of worst shot in the history of Test cricket.
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This is perhaps an exaggeration. There are no bad shots. There are only feelings, moments, a unified cricketing self made up of all our shots. But still, this was pushing it, as Warner threw his bat in a huge scything arc, bottom hand curling around, feet planted, falling to his knees in a Godfather of Soul pose as his stumps were detonated off a thick inside edge.
There were more Broad flickers. He raged about in the field, panther-diving at short leg and leaping up into combat stance, to huge roars. He did wonderful work with the old ball, holding it out in his fingertips and looking sad until eventually Marais Erasmus gave in and signalled for the third umpire to come out with his little steel case, like a hitman striding through an airport. Post-lunch there were three overs of bouncers as the ghost of The Enforcer stalked the fringes.
Broad will be 37 in a week’s time. He is now closing in on six hundred wickets, with more in the Ashes than any other England bowler. As the ground shifts beneath this spectacle, an event increasingly detached from the forces outside, it is tempting to wonder if there will ever be a cricketer of such stature whose career is so closely defined by the Ashes.
Late on Broad bowled Khawaja and was already off doing the hard yards of the celebration-sprint as Erasmus signalled no-ball. With Australia ending the day on 311 for five it felt like a last chance to stop this match stretching out towards its inevitable late Bazball-driven drama.
