“England has love affair with Ashes cricket”: Stuart Broad

London [UK], June 7 (ANI): England pacer Stuart Broad said that England has a “love affair” with the Ashes series. England will play against Australia in the reputed Ashes series starting from June 16.

“You can’t take the emphasis off the Ashes because it’s our biggest series. You only have to be driving through service stations in the last year and it’s ‘come on guys, beat Australia’ – our country has a love affair with Ashes cricket, but as an organisation, we had to get our mindset away from personnel losing their jobs if results didn’t go the way you want them to,” Broad said as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.

With five first-innings wickets in England’s ten-wicket victory over Ireland at Lord’s last week, Broad showed his lasting abilities as a strike bowler. He is aware that there is no certainty that he has done enough to be in the starting lineup for the first game of the series next week, especially with James Anderson, Ollie Robinson, and Mark Wood all in the race for recalls at Edgbaston.

“I think we have lived in a really healthy way in the last 12 months,” he added. “The Ashes was only mentioned for the first time in the post-match debrief against Ireland, and it was ‘it doesn’t matter what the results as long as we stick to how we play’. As long as we have kids watching and saying ‘wow that’s incredible’, then we have done our jobs.”

“I’m just flowing around at the moment,” Broad said, aptly enough, during a sponsor’s event for Laithwaites wine at Lord’s. “I feel really happy with how my cricket is, how life is. I feel fit, I feel fresh. Whether I play at Edgbaston, whether I play at Lord’s, Headingley … I don’t mind, I play really well at all of them.

Broad loves playing against Australia as he has taken 131 wickets in 35 matches with an average of 29.05. He has the highest wickets against Australia.

“I love playing against Australia, and whether that’s the first Test, the fifth Test, the third … I’m happy to try and strike whenever I get the chance. I think ultimately as a team we’re going to need every bowler, and we’re going to need to take 100 wickets to win the Ashes. But my ultimate aim is to be fit and fresh and playing at The Oval, because that’s the fifth, and that means I’ve done my job for the group,” He further said.

England Men’s Ashes Test Squad: Ben Stokes (Durham) Captain, Moeen Ali (Warwickshire), James Anderson (Lancashire), Jonathan Bairstow (Yorkshire), Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire), Harry Brook (Yorkshire), Zak Crawley (Kent), Ben Duckett (Nottinghamshire), Dan Lawrence (Essex), Ollie Pope (Surrey), Matthew Potts (Durham), Ollie Robinson (Sussex), Joe Root (Yorkshire), Josh Tongue (Worcestershire), Chris Woakes (Warwickshire), Mark Wood (Durham)