‘I’ve heard it’s an Aussie change-of-luck thing…’: Stuart Broad on the switching of Marnus Labuschagne’s bails | Cricket News

At 91 for 1, Australia were looking content and solid on Day 2 of the morning session at the Oval. In the 43rd over of the Australian innings, Broad strolled down to the stumps and flipped the bails around. The antic brought England luck as Marnus Labuschagne edged the next ball and Joe Root took a stunning one-handed blinder at first slip.
Labuschagne’s wicket opened the floodgates for England seamers, who were tad unlucky in the first hour of the day.
“I’ve heard it’s an Aussie change of luck thing,” Broad told reporters after the match.

: Stuart Broad: Mind Games Extraordinaire
Incredible, Broady 😂👏 #EnglandCricket | #Ashes pic.twitter.com/MdeuNgrN2F
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) July 28, 2023
“I’ve seen Nathan Lyon do it. We had a few play and misses in the morning session and we needed to make a breakthrough and I thought: ‘I’ll have a little change of the bails.’
“It just worked out pretty magically that he nicked the next ball and Rooty took a great catch.
“I randomly went and celebrated with Uzzy (Usman Khawaja]) for some reason. He said: ‘If you touch my bails I’m flipping them straight back.’ So he gave me an immediate warning.”
Australia has managed to get a 12-run lead in their first innings after spending nearly twice as many overs doing so. In the first session, Australia scored 54 runs were scored in 26 overs.
With many cricket pundits, including former England skipper Michael Vaughan calling out Australia for playing in an “Un-Australian way,” but Broad on the other hand said it was “just an old-school battle of Test match cricket.”

“Sometimes as a bowling group if you keep things tight you only need to make a couple of breakthroughs to [create] a bit of pressure and we managed to do that straightaway after lunch,” he said.
“That was probably our chance to really develop a bit of a lead in the first innings but this series nothing’s happened easy for either team. It’s ebbed and flowed and whenever you feel like you’re on top the other team fights back. I think that’s what’s made it so interesting,” he added.