Stuart Broad has explained how his strange but effective decision to switch around the bails on Marnus Labuschagne’s stumps, one ball before the Australia No.3’s dismissal, was an “attempt to change luck”.
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Labuschagne had a smile on his face as Broad walked over to his crease and switched over the bails on top of his stumps, before resuming his fielding position. But the right-hander was disappointed soon after, edging Mark Wood behind to Joe Root next ball, and complaining about the bad light as he walked off.
Broad ran in, embracing non-striker Usman Khawaja before celebrating with Stokes. His antics were soon picked up by the commentators, who wondered what the thinking behind Broad’s move was. He took to Twitter after the game to explain himself.
“Now I’d heard changing the bails is an Aussie thing to attempt to change luck,” he posted. “I’ve currently not had this confirmed by any Aussie- have I made that up?!”
Now I’d heard changing the bails is an Aussie thing to attempt to change luck 🍀 I’ve currently not had this confirmed by any Aussie- have I made that up?! 😂 https://t.co/ValXDc2csx
— Stuart Broad (@StuartBroad8) July 28, 2023
He further elaborated in the post-day press conference. “I’ve seen Nathan Lyon do it,” he said. “And I feel like I’ve seen Justin Langer do it.”
“Is that right?” he then asked Steve Smith, also in the press conference. “You’ve never heard of that. Could have just made that up! But we had a few play-and-misses in the morning session, we needed to make a breakthrough, and I though, ‘I’ll have a little change of the bails’. Marnus is someone who would notice everything so he took notice of it, and I think Ussie said something to him: ‘I’ve seen someone do that before.’ It just worked out pretty magically that he nicked the next ball and Rooty took a great catch. I randomly went and celebrated with Ussie for some reason. It was just a nice little change of bail to change the luck and it seemed to work for that ball.”
Australia ended day two bowled out and leading by 12 on first innings, with Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett set to begin England’s response on day three.
