Stuart Broad reaction goes viral as legends shame ‘stupid England’ after first Test collapse against Australia

Geoffrey Boycott has shamed ‘stupid England’ while Stuart Broad joked he found just one positive for Ben Stokes’ side after they collapsed to go 1-0 down in the Ashes.

The tourists suffered two calamitous batting collapses and never came close to stopping Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne in the fourth innings as Australia won by eight wickets in Perth on Saturday night.

England will now head to the vaunted ‘Gabbatoir’ with their tail between their legs, which are at least less tired for having only played two days of Test cricket.

“I’m still drastically searching for positives from an English point of view,” Broad said on Channel 7.

“They’ve been wondering for months how they’ll get the fast bowlers through five Tests.

“If they’re going to be this quick, they’ve got a chance. Bowling seven, eight overs an innings — I think they can do that for a few weeks.”

The jab came after Broad went viral for his reaction to Joe Root’s dismissal on Saturday, when the former skipper was the third England batsman to fall in the space of six deliveries.

Broad simply closed his eyes, took a deep breath and pinched his face as he listened to Matthew Hayden and Alison Mitchell pump up Australia’s momentum.

“Stuart Broad, stay in the commentary box,” Hayden said.

The footage spread far and wide as screenshots and GIFs ensured Broad’s reaction would go down as the first meme of the series.

“I feel flat. I feel a bit sad,” Broad said on For the Love of Cricket after play.

“Because you get a WinViz percentage of 74 per cent as an England team in Australia, Test one, you have to make that count and the boys just weren’t able to do it.”

Beyond the memes the recriminations began once Australia wrapped up victory at 5.41pm local time — or 9.41am in London, giving the English the entire weekend to stew over the loss.

Boycott’s review was published with the headline ‘I cannot take this stupid England team seriously any more’ and he wasted no time taking aim at Stokes’ pre-match “has-beens” remark.

“Well, from this has-been the message is simple: when you keep throwing away Test matches by doing the same stupid things it is impossible to take you seriously,” Boycott wrote.

“They never learn, because they never listen to anyone outside their own bubble, because they truly believe their own publicity.

“Now it has bitten them in an Ashes Test, the biggest challenge of all and unless they mount a spectacular comeback, they will regret it for a very long time.”

Broad also referenced the ‘has-beens’ when asked if England will think about changing their Bazball method in the series.

“Well the preparation will probably come under some question marks again, as it was before,” he said.

“Ben Stokes came out and said the has-beens have had their pop at the preparation and how many warm-up games England played.

“The pitch that they played the warm-up game looked like it was very different to a surface like this so you can maybe get away with playing shots, different shots on surfaces like that that you can’t do here.

“But let’s remember the Aussie players don’t play a huge amount here, do they? They don’t get huge amounts of experience on these grounds as well.”

Ex-captain Nasser Hussain said he does not expect change, explaining the current outfit does not overreact.

“A real hard, high mountain to climb now,” he told Sky, with co-host Michael Atherton calling out England’s “disappointing” inability to “shut out games” from strong positions.

Echoing Boycott, Hussain added: “They got ahead by being positive. How do they be smart as well?”

Stokes said he has told his team to embrace the pain of the two-day defeat and move on quickly.

“I think we’ve got to let that whole two hours sort of sink in first,” the shell-shocked skipper said.

“And then reflect on it properly, without the emotion that’s attached to what’s just gone on there.

“Obviously, there’s disappointment.

“But it’s up to myself, it’s up to Baz (coach Brendon McCullum) and some of the other senior guys who have a lot of experience in big series like these (to get the guys up), because you’ve got to let emotions like this sink in and it has got to hurt.

“Because when we get to Brisbane, we need to be back up to that mindset of how we came into the series before this game.

“I’m still very confident of our abilities and achieving the goal. So yeah, got to be so crucial about not taking any baggage from this result into Brisbane, because we need to win that one.”