Trent Bridge/Nagpur: England pacer Stuart Broad bundled out the Australian batting for just 60 runs off 18.3 overs on Day 1 of the fourth Ashes Test at Trent Bridge on Thursday, bagging his 300th Test wicket and claiming a career-best eight for 15.
Broad took three wickets with the first eight balls of the match and struck five times in his first four overs in an extraordinary start to the match. He claimed his 300th Test victim with the third ball of the morning when he had opener Chris Rogers caught at first slip by captain Alastair Cook for a duck.
Steven Smith, on six, edged the last ball of the first over to Joe Root in the slips and David Warner nicked his second delivery from Mark Wood to wicketkeeper Jos Buttler, leaving the touring side in tatters at 10 for three.
Australia captain Michael Clarke, who dropped down the order to number five, walked out to face the ninth delivery of the match.
England, who won the toss and lead the series 2-1, struck another blow when Shaun Marsh edged Broad to Ian Bell at second slip and Adam Voges was brilliantly caught one-handed by a diving Ben Stokes at gully as Australia slumped to 21 for five.
It was the first time in Test history that the first five wickets of the match had fallen within 25 balls of the start.
Clarke survived 25 minutes for his 10 runs before he drove loosely at a wide ball from Broad and was well caught above his head by Cook.
Phil Nevill didn’t last long, either, with first change bowler Steven Finn demolishing the right-hander’s off stump to send him back for two off 15 deliveries, with the score at 33 for seven.
Broad then returned to claim two scalps – that of Mitchell Starc and Mitchell Johnson – in three deliveries, both wickets falling in virtually identical fashion with Root taking both catches.
Australia’s tail-enders managed to hold on for longer than the openers did, avoiding the ignominy of being all out for less than 50, before Broad fittingly claimed the last wicket, that of spinner Nathan Lyon, who edged one outside off to Stokes at sixth slip.
It was Broad’s 14th five-wicket haul in a Test innings and was the first time an England bowler had taken five wickets before lunch on the first day of a Test since Sydney Barnes, against South Africa in 1913. His five wickets in 19 deliveries equalled the record of the fastest five-wicket haul in Test history, that of Australia’s Ernie Toshack, who achieved the same haul against India at Brisbane in 1947.
Broad, playing his 83rd Test, became the fifth England bowler to take 300 Test wickets after fellow pacemen James Anderson, Ian Botham, Bob Willis and Fred Trueman.
Anderson, who tops the list with 413 victims, is missing the fourth Test due to a side injury he sustained in the last match in Birmingham.
