Broad joins Nas and Ath to reflect on an England Test victory in Australia, but one tinged with Ashes regret

·46 min·3 clips

Nasser says two-day Tests are “not good for the game” and argues four days is the right balance.

The panel looks back on England's Test win in Australia. The result ends a long stretch of pain, but it does not wipe away the wider damage of the series. The discussion starts with how the pitch changed the shape of the contest. England's seamers had to hit top-of-off again and again because anything loose got punished. That made the match feel less like a free-flowing bat-and-ball game and more like a test of discipline. The panel also gets into how England had to bat. They point to the need to stay positive and take the game to Australia rather than waiting for the surface to ease up. Australia’s injury and selection picture comes under the microscope too. Steve Smith's absence and Josh Hazlewood's unavailability feed the sense that the hosts were suddenly a bit more exposed, along with the idea that Australia were reshuffling their side. Even so, the talk does not drift into easy revisionism. The point is that Australia were beatable because England made them look that way. There is a strong thread about Ben Stokes as well. The panel sees the week as important for him, not just for the team. They talk about how tours can split a dressing room when results go bad. The Noosa period and the run of losses are framed as moments when people start thinking about themselves instead of the group. Stokes' press conference is singled out as a key part of keeping everyone together. That leadership is treated as practical, not grand. The episode keeps coming back to accountability. It asks why England had been so poor before this point and why the response finally arrived here. It also sits with the oddness of an Ashes tour where a victory can feel like both relief and failure. The final stretch of the conversation opens out into broader tour memory and the politics of a dressing room under pressure, before easing into end-of-year chat. The tone stays dry, informed and unsentimental throughout. The result is a cricket conversation that values what the win meant without pretending it solved anything.

As heard by us

A sharp Ashes conversation that uses England's win to examine pressure, preparation and what the tour revealed.

This episode treats England's win in Australia as a test of nerve as much as skill. The cricket analysis stays close to the basics: the pitch asked for top-of-off discipline, and the batting needed to fit the surface instead of trying to bully it.

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Why you'd press play

If you want the Ashes win with the pressure still hanging off it, start here.

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