The Ashes: Stuart Broad says he still doesn’t know how to get Steve Smith out

Smith’s form dipped slightly between June 2023 and December 2024 when he went 23 innings without a Test hundred, but he did make a double against India last winter and made 141 and 131 against Sri Lanka at the start of 2025.

After a two-month break, he began his preparation for this year’s Ashes in late October and scored 118 runs in his first innings.

“To win the series, we have to keep it [his average] To under 50, right?'” Broad said.

“He’ll score a hundred, that’s what he does.

“[If] His average age is 40, which is at least 15 years less than his career average, so you’re doing a great job. I think you have to get it early.

“If England don’t celebrate in their first 40 overs, it’s going to be a long series.”

England have had different plans to counter Smith’s unorthodox style over the course of 14 Ashes series.

Broad spoke of developing a new player for Smith ahead of the 2023 series as England targeted Smith’s pads, bowling wide from off stump and even bowling for catches at leg groove in 2019 – a series Smith began with a twin hundreds at Edgbaston.

“I remember Jason Roy was playing there in the leg groove, diving right and left in the first 30 balls, but he lost it there, lost it there,” Broad said.

“Smith ran away, got two hundreds in that match, an unbelievable innings.”

Broad added: “I remember sitting in a bowlers’ meeting about Steve Smith in 2017-18 and they were saying ‘oh, you could try attacking his stumps early’.

“‘Oh yeah, can we just click on the number of times the ball has been bowled in Australia in the last five years?’ Once.”

The upcoming series, which begins in Perth on Friday (02:30 GMT), looks set to see Smith take on Jofra Archer for the first time in Tests since 2019, when he famously became unsteady and was hit by a bouncer during the English pacer’s ferocious spell at Lord’s.

Smith was always keen to point out that Archer did not dismiss him in that Test – he had to retire hurt and was out weighed against Chris Woakes on his return – although Archer had a right-hander caught in a one-day international in 2024.

“Could Jofra Archer be that man?” Wide said. “I cut him from behind, just chase him.

“Given Jofra Archer has the angle to throw back towards the stumps, can he bite one off? Smith is looking for a backer.”