The Ashes: Stuart Broad Thrives on Boos from the Australian Ashes Crowd

"I remember [the noise] sort of bouncing off the stadium," said Stuart Broad, per the Daily Mail, in September of his lone Test in Australia. "The Gabba almost doesn’t let the sound out — it just reverberates around. It was an experience for me. I was 24 and I was probably a bit overawed."

Back then in 2010, as the third victim of a Peter Siddle hat-trick on the first day of the series, overawed he may well have been.

But, oh, how things were different on Thursday.

The sound of Stuart Broad’s name being read out on the stadium Tannoy at just after 11:03 a.m. local time was immediately drowned out by a chorus of boos reverberating around the ground as Broad stood at the top of his run—soon after which, pockets of the crowd broke into chanting: "Stuart Broad’s a w****r!"

But this is nothing Broad is not used to. Indeed, in the lead-up to this series in particular, Broad has been the target of a vicious campaign against him, instigated largely by his controversial decision not to walk when he edged an Ashton Agar delivery to first slip in the first Ashes Test at Trent Bridge.

The incident was the precursor to an ill-advised and foolish radio interview by Australian head coach Darren Lehmann in which he called on Australian fans to make Broad cry during the return series. And ever since then, the vitriol directed at Broad has only proliferated.

The bitter criticism—or Ashes banter, depending on your point of view—reached fever pitch in the lead-up to this first Test, with the local newspaper (the lines between the Australian media and the team’s own PR department are increasingly blurred) The Courier-Mail, declaring a "Broad Ban" in which Broad would be referred to as "a 27-year-old English medium pace bowler," lambasting him for his "sullying of the gentleman's game."

If the criticism was supposed to distract or upset Broad, then it backfired. Broad is a player who thrives on such situations: a street-fighter; a big-match bowler; fight, most definitely not flight.

"I like it all kicking off," declared Broad prior to the series. And kick off it did.

Broad’s seventh ball of the day was a rising, back-of-a-length snorter right at the body of the batsman Chris Rogers, who fended the ball tamely to Ian Bell at gully.

The crowd were momentarily silenced but not for long. As the sun beat down and David Warner and Shane Watson began to get settled, the crowd found their voice again. "Stuart Broad’s a w*****!" echoed around the ground once more as Broad lurked in the outfield.

A second spell came on the eve of lunch and in its third over, a sharp, rising short ball was timidly prodded into the hands of Graeme Swann by Watson.

Michael Clarke then arrived at the crease and either side of lunch saw off a handful of spitting deliveries before a truly short ball came, which Clarke saw, panicked, hesitated, raised his hands to, closed his eyes and hoped.

The ball ballooned off the shoulder of the bat into the air on the leg side, straight into the hands of the short-leg. England’s players wheeled off in jubilant celebration.

Two overs later, the collapse was complete. An innocuous short ball was slapped straight to cover by Warner. It hadn’t taken long, but the fragility of the Australian batting line-up, so exposed during the English summer, had been laid bare once again.

The Brisbane crowd was silent. The Courier-Mail’s Twitter feed was silent.

A lower-order recovery—yet again—did follow, but the damage had been done. Broad picked up his fifth, Chris Tremlett snaffled one and James Anderson two as Australia closed on a well-below-par 273-8.

It was a day of earth-shattering realisation for those who had bought into the pre-series Australian hype. Of course, this is only one innings and things could improve, but this was a collapse synonymous with the series of the English summer, not one synonymous with the talk of change and improvement.

For Broad, and for England, it was just another day at work. The planning was excellent and the execution even better. And in a revealing letting down of the guard, following weeks of ignoring the barbs of the Australian media and players, Broad walked into the close-of-play press conference carrying a copy of yesterday’s Courier-Mail with a cheeky smile on his face.

It was one of those days.