Stuart Broad runs and runs even deeper into Ashes folklore
There was a moment when it looked like Stuart Broad may never stop running.
His follow-through had taken him away to point and around the back of the slip cordon, which had dispersed to chase Broad like the tail of a fireball. And though you knew he wouldn't, you couldn't rule out him continuing into the Hollies and draining a celebratory pint with all of the Baywatch lifeguards, Fred Flintstones and cast of Mario Kart. Had he done so, he was only getting back onto the field by bringing all of them with him. He was theirs, they were his. In that moment - all Stuart Broad, aren't we?
The great Ashes conductor, Enemy of the Strayans, One Meme Army himself, had just turned Edgbaston and this Test match inside out with two wickets in two deliveries. The Australia first innings cracked open from 29 for none to 29 for 2. A day of huge importance - aren't they all when you care too much? - skewed England's way in an instant.
To go by the reaction of Broad, his team-mates and everyone in the ground on Saturday - including crestfallen Australians - you'd think this was the first time anyone had taken two-in-two. Broad himself has done that 13 times, but what tipped this one-two into legendary status beyond the state of the match - and perhaps ahead of his two Test hat-tricks - was the status of the two victims.
History weighed heavy on the first. Ben Stokes admitted ahead of the match Broad's selection had a lot to do with David Warner's presence at the top of the order. It is why even Australia saw day one's late declaration coming. England's mantra of giving the fans what they want had provided 393 runs. But Stokes was all too aware of the main attraction this summer and pulled the warm-up act after 78 overs.
Warner played the evening out soundly. Two crisp shots to the cover boundary in both Broad's Friday night overs punctured the mood. With a new crowd in situ this morning, the anticipation ramped up again.
A couple of maidens between the two went by with little of note. Then, at the start of the 11th over, Warner decided to have a go. Out came another drive, squarer than he'd have liked, but the width was there for it. But with balance all off - front foot tentative, back leg buckling - all he could do was bottom edge onto his own stumps.
He stumbled into the off side, gathering his feet as Broad set off with a celebration that spoke of expectation rather than excitement, like someone who had finally called "tails" correctly on a series of coin tosses.
Broad's success over the left-hander feels a lot like probability. This was dismissal number 15, a ninth in 11 innings, third at this ground in three, and certainly not the last to come.
Things had not always been one-sided. Warner averaged 64.80 against Broad prior to a recalculation from the Englishman before 2019. "Ultimately, the biggest praise I can give Davey is the fact I had to completely study him and change my style of bowling because of the success he had against me," said Broad a few weeks ago.
A month earlier, the 36-year-old was in a similarly analytical mood. Perched on the member's benches on the second tier of the Lord's Pavilion, as day three of Nottinghamshire's County Championship match with Middlesex was coming to an end, he revealed a couple of technical tweaks.
With the help of Notts bowling coach Kevin Shine, his action was starting to smooth out, losing the jerkiness that had developed after years of subsisting on the wobble seam delivery. By holding his hands higher, he was creating greater fluidity from gather to delivery, which in turn allowed him to workshop this new delivery called an "outswinger". Its purpose? To rattle Australia's brightest and best, specifically Steve Smith and the No. 1-ranked Test batter in the world, Marnus Labuschagne.
"I think dragging them across with away swing is important," explained Broad, like a TikToker claiming getting to McDonald's for 10:29am so you can order hashbrowns with your Big Mac is some kind of life hack.
We laughed, and rightly so. Even in his sincerity, there was a whiff of proto-Warne in talking up a new variation even better than the last. But an outswinger? That thing people have been bowling since they started doing it overarm? Come on, now, Stuart. But hey - who are we to tell you? Broad is the best talker in the game. So talk on.
You wonder how many in the stands remembered those words when Labuschagne walked out. So many have been spoken in the lead-up to this series that it felt like Ashes content was folding in on itself like a dying star. This, though - Warner gone, Broad at it, crowd wild, Labuschagne facing - is what really matters.
Labuschagne went through his usual routines, adding the removal of a police officer from his eyeline before facing up.
Did Labuschagne know what was coming? Almost certainly. The 28-year-old is a voracious consumer of the game, to the extent he has had lost the habit of sending articles and stats to team-mates who are not. If you didn't know that before, you certainly did when he triggered across to off stump to get a better gauge on what to play and what to leave.
Then there was the leg gully and leg slip for the delivery coming into him, which given who was bowling puts the odds in favour of a bluff. Cover was free, too, which for a 38-cap No. 4 who averages 56.73, means don't drive the balls they want you to drive. Like, ummmm, an early outswinger.
Yet, the compulsion to feel forward, the desire to get bat on ball, the subconscious pull to contribute to the narrative, the gravitational chicanery of Broad was too great to resist. Down came the outswinger, just as prophesied. Out went Labuschagne - via a stunning one-handed catch from Jonny Bairstow - just as prophesied, for a first golden duck in Test cricket.
And off went Broad - away past point, around the back of the slip cordon, right through the Hollies beyond the Baywatch lifeguards, Fred Flintstones and cast of Mario Kart, and even deeper into Ashes folklore.