Stuart Broad has lit the touchpaper for another explosive Ashes series, claiming Australia coach Darren Lehmann is using mind games to try to unsettle England because he knows his side aren’t better than their old enemy.
Lehmann was fined 20 per cent of his match fee for comments made about Broad in a radio interview during the fifth Test at The Oval between the sides last August.
The former Test batsman accused the controversial fast bowler of “blatant cheating” and vowed to send him home from the upcoming series in Australia “in tears”.
In a separate interview Lehmann then said the England team were dour and questioned the technique of No.3 batsman Jonathan Trott.
Shane Warne has also been a stern critic, claiming Alastair Cook is a negative captain and that his players were arrogant.
But in an interview with BBC Radio, Broad said Lehmann’s claims were proof he’d got under the Australian team’s skin.
“As an opposition player, when a head coach starts speaking about you from the opposition, it’s not a bad thing,” Broad said.
“It means they are in your bubble and they are not enjoying playing against you. Which is what professional sport is all about.
“Lehmann will try mind games. I see he had a go at Trotty’s technique.
“If we believed everything that came out: dour cricket, captained poorly, we don’t bowl our overs quick enough, lack adaptability.
“But we won the series 3-0. So if we did everything they say we can’t, then surely we’d win the two series 10-0.”
Broad said he had no issues with Warne and the leg-spinning great was just trying to help the Australian side.
“It’s a PR game. I see Warne as working for Australia. We are not listening to what he says,” he said.
“It’s like a big fight, all the trash talk that goes before it. We don’t need to get involved in that.
“We’re very happy with where we are as a team. We’ve got some skilful players, guys who are hungry to perform in Australia we don’t need to comment on Australia.”
Broad incurred the wrath of Lehmann when he refused to walk during the first Test at Trent Bridge after edging an Ashton Agar delivery off the fingers of Brad Haddin’s gloves and into the hands of Michael Clarke at first slip.
Umpire Aleem Dar gave him not out and England went on to win the match by 14 runs to lay the foundations for a 3-0 series win.
Broad said he has no regrets about standing his ground and revealed he’d knocked back an attempt by Lehmann to try to explain himself when the pair came face to face at the conclusion of the fifth Test at The Oval.
“Ryan Harris came over first of all and apologised and said the Aussie players had given him a hard time because they felt his comments were unacceptable,” he said.
“He [Lehmann] then came across and said, ‘I meant it in jest’.
“I said, ‘it doesn’t look like jest to me’.
“He said something along the lines of, listen to the interview and I said, I’ve far better things to do with my time, and that was about it.
“But we then shared a nice beer and I said, see you in November.”
