The Ashes phoney war is well underway and Stuart Broad’s comments this week about the current Australian team being the worst since 2010 certainly raised hackles Down Under.
Broad’s analysis was fair, with the Aussie set-up hit by an injury to captain and key fast bowler Pat Cummins that threatens his series and their batting line-up also in flux.
More interesting, though, was his assertion that this England team is the best to travel to Australia since that 2010-11 Ashes, when a squad led by Andrew Strauss, including Broad, memorably won 3-1.
Broad’s career also took in the first two years of the Bazball era before he retired in the summer of 2023, his last act as an England player taking the wicket that sealed victory at The Oval to earn Ben Stokes’ team a 2-2 series draw in that summer’s Ashes.
Stuart Broad helped Ben Stokes’ team earn a 2-2 Ashes series draw in 2023 (Photo: Getty)It means the 39-year-old is in a unique position to judge the relative merits of both the 2010-11 and current teams.
He is not wrong to say that the squad who land in Australia next month ahead of the first Test at Perth on 21 November will be the best to contest an away Ashes for 15 years.
Yet given England have lost 13 of their past 15 Tests in Australia over that period, the bar is not exactly high.
Indeed, while the current crop look like having the best chance of winning Down Under since 2010-11, they are nowhere near the class of the team that triumphed on that tour.
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That is not to denigrate the present England players, who since Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum took over in the summer of 2022 have given fans some of the most thrilling Test cricket this country has ever seen.
They are box-office and their high-octane, positive approach will hopefully serve them well this winter.
Yet they are not, yet at least, anywhere near the level of what should be regarded as the greatest England team of the modern era, the core of whom reached No 1 in the world in 2011 and also won in India the year after.
It is always difficult comparing different eras. But it is fair to say that probably only three current players – Joe Root, Stokes and Mark Wood – would get into the 2010-11 England XI.
At the top of the order, there’s no possible logic for either Ben Duckett, despite an average of 46.03 during the Bazball era, or Zak Crawley displacing either Strauss or Alastair Cook.
That 2010-11 opening pair is still regarded as the best England have had this century, with Strauss and Cook averaging over 40 as a partnership and individually as well as sharing a combined 54 Test centuries. Don’t forget Cook also scored 766 runs at 127.66 in the 2010-11 Ashes.
There is no displacing Andrew Strauss or Alastair Cook at the top of the order (Photo: Getty)Jonathan Trott also remains at No 3 ahead of either Ollie Pope or Jacob Bethell, no surprise given nobody has nailed down this pivotal position in England’s team since Trott retired a decade ago with a career average of 44.
Root, arguably the greatest England batter of the modern era, obviously gets in to any combined XI, batting in his preferred position of No 4. That would see Kevin Pietersen moved down to five in the order and Paul Collingwood dropped from the XI.
It means there is no room for Harry Brook, who in time may well become regarded as good a player or even better than Pietersen but for now cannot shift him from our combined team.
My combined 2010-11/2025 England XI
Current players in bold
Strauss Cook Trott Root Pietersen Stokes Prior Swann Wood Broad AndersonAt No 6, Stokes comes in for Ian Bell, who despite averaging 65.80 in 2010-11 cannot lay serious claim to being a better pick than England’s greatest all-rounder of the 21st century.
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Matt Prior, who averaged 50 on that victorious Ashes tour and 40 overall across 79 Tests, remains our wicketkeeper-batter ahead of the gifted but still inexperienced Jamie Smith.
The spinner is also a no-brainer, with Graeme Swann streets ahead of not just Shoaib Bashir but any other slow bowler England have picked since his retirement midway through the 2013-14 Ashes.
The seam-bowling department is difficult because the attack England have picked this winter looks on paper like it could be one of the best they have taken Down Under in recent times.
But if we are looking at career records and form in Australia, of the current crop only Wood, with an Ashes average of 27.48, can arguably be included in this combined team.
It means James Anderson, who took 24 wickets at 26 in 2010-11, and Broad, who took 153 Ashes wickets, complete the XI.
Yet the exciting thing for the England squad heading to Australia this winter is that their stories have not yet been fully told, their records in Australia not yet written and, for many, their best Ashes moments lie ahead of them.
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