England seamer Stuart Broad remains unrepentant about his controversial decision not to walk after he edged Australia spinner Ashton Agar to slip during last summer’s first Ashes Test at Trent Bridge.
Broad was given not out by umpire Aleem Dar and went on to share a decisive partnership with Ian Bell which helped to give England a lead in the series which they went on to win 3-0.
In an interview with former England captain Michael Vaughan which will be broadcast on Radio5 Live this evening Broad insists that he did nothing different to most other professional cricketers. “My first comment on that whole incident is I could name you 18 or 19 players who played in an Ashes series who nicked it and didn’t walk,” Broad said. “We could be here all day if I named players from the past. I am trying to think of someone in the modern game who is consistently a walker.
“It’s a really interesting debate and something that got blown so out of proportion maybe because the Australians were frustrated they had wasted two referrals.
“It was an important moment in the game because, let’s be honest, if Belly and I hadn’t put on those runs, we wouldn’t have won the Test match so we would only have won 3-1 or something.”
Asked by Vaughan whether he would stand his ground again if the same situation were to happen in the first Test of this winter’s Ashes series, Broad said: “Yes. I won’t nick, I’ll hit it for four.”
Broad’s refusal to walk at Trent Bridge was criticised by Australia coach Darren Lehmann, who accused him of “blatant cheating” and urged Australia fans to make Broad cry this winter.
Broad revealed that Australia players had criticised Lehmann for his comments and that the coach had apologised to him for his comments.
“Ryan Harris came over to me and apologised. First of all he said from the players we have given him [Lehmann] a hard time and his comments were unacceptable,” Broad said. “Then he [Lehmann] came across and said: I meant it in jest. I said that in black and white it doesn’t look like jest to me. He said something along the lines of, listen to the interview, and I said, I have far better things to do with my time, and that was about it. We shared a nice beer and I said, 'See you in November’.”
Lehmann has since described England’s cricket as dour and questioned the technique of batsman Jonathan Trott but Broad said England would not be distracted by Australia’s attempts to play mind games.
“It’s like a big boxing match coming up a bit of trash talk. We are the side that don’t need to get involved in that, we are very happy where we are as a team, we have got some very skilful players,” Broad said.
“We don’t need to comment on Australia we don’t need to comment on them as a team. We are more than happy for them to comment on us.”
You can hear more in Stuart Broad Uncovered on BBC Radio 5 Live tonight at 9pm
