Stuart Broad admitted his unorthodox bail switch just before Marnus Labuschagne’s wicket “worked out pretty magically” and joked the Australian batter never believes he is out.
Towards the end of a dull and tedious morning session that yielded just 54 runs in two hours of play, Broad tried to conjure up a breakthrough for England by playing mind games with the Australian number three.
He walked over to the stumps behind the batter between balls and just swapped the bails around, Labuschagne might have smiled, but it was Broad who had the last laugh, with the batter edging behind the next ball off Mark Wood.
Joe Root took a stunning catch and Labuschagne had to depart for an incredibly slow 9 from 82 deliveries.
“I’ve heard – and I might have made this up - that it’s like an Aussie change of luck thing and I’ve seen Nathan Lyon do it, and I feel like I’ve seen Justin Langer do it.
“I could have just made that up. But we had a few played and misses in the morning session, we needed to make a breakthrough and I thought I’d have a little change of the bails.
“Marnus is someone who would notice everything so he took notice of it and I thought Uzzy said something to him like ‘I’ve seen someone do that before’ and it just worked out pretty magically that he nicked off next ball and Rooty took a great catch.”
He added: “I randomly went and celebrated with Uzzy (Usman Khawaja, who was the non-striker) for some reason but it was just a nice little change to change the luck and it seemed to work well.”
When asked if in similar circumstances, Broad could turn to the same tactics, he was slightly more cautious.
“He (Khawaja) said ‘if you touch my bails I’m flipping them straight back’ So he gave me an immediate warning,” Broad said.
“Only if Marnus comes out (would I do the same), Uzzy gave me a warning so I don’t think I’ll touch his bails.
“It was a pretty successful result wasn’t it? So I think if the game gets tight I might wander up again.”
Wood struck the ball after Broad switched Labuschagne’s bails— (Getty Images)
Labuschagne seemed displeased when he had to leave the field and took his time walking back to the Australia dressing room, and Broad believes he found something to blame other than his shot.
“I think it was the dark. I think he was unhappy about the light conditions. I don’t know that because I was down the other end, but I think the word got back to us that he was questioning whether it was…
“To be fair at the Oval because of where the sightscreen is, underneath the stands are quite angled and it does look dark when you look out that way so I don’t think they took a light reading, but it was probably a bit darker than it was at Old Trafford when we came off.
“But he strikes me as the sort of batter who is never out, and has to find a reason why he’s out so the light took a pounding I think.”
