BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — It's the game before the games, the chatter for the Ashes.
And well-known former protagonists from Australia and England have started the verbal jousting that comes with one of the oldest sporting rivalries in the world.
Ex-Australia opening batter David Warner raised the level this week when he said the Australians were competing to win the Ashes, while England would be playing for a “moral victory” for its so-called Bazball approach to test cricket.
Warner predicted a 4-0 win for Australia — expecting the weather inevitably to play some part in a draw along the way — although suggested England could win one test if Australia skipper Pat Cummins is ruled out through injury.
Stuart Broad, a longtime pace spearhead for England, upped the ante by declaring Australia’s squad will be the worst to wear the baggy green since 2010-11.
“It’s probably the worst Australian team since 2010 when England last won, and it’s the best English team since 2010,” Broad told a BBC podcast. “It’s actually not an opinion, it’s fact.
“So those things match up to the fact it’s going to be a brilliant Ashes series.”
That assessment hit where it hurts for the Aussies, being the last series where Australia lost an Ashes match on home soil.
In fact, that was Australia's only Ashes series loss at home since it reclaimed the urn in England in 1989. And the home record since is 13 wins, two draws, no defeats in tests.
The Australians have held the Ashes since 2017, retaining the old urn with series wins at home and drawn series in England.
The 2025-26 five-test series starts Nov. 21 in Perth, Western Australia.
Broad, who was part of the squad that won here in 2010-11, and also the squads that lost here three times since, highlighted uncertainty over the composition of Australia's batting top-order, as well as the fitness concerns over Cummins as areas to exploit for England.
“When have we ever, since 2010, been discussing who is going to bat No. 1, 2, 3, 6, 8 and who is going to be the spare bowler for Australia?” Broad said. "You’re always go in there going: ‘well,the Aussies, they’re really strong. They’ve just got the same bowlers, the same team’.
In the 2010-11 series, Broad said, Australia was trying to replacing greats Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer, and didn't have a front-line spinner.
“They changed the seamers all the time, and they had a bit of a mixed match of batters," Broad said. "So I don’t think anyone could argue that it’s their weakest team since 2010.”
England's stocks have been lifted with the return of paceman Jofra Archer, the return to fitness of Mark Wood and Joe Root entering the series as the No. 1 test batter in the world, albeit having never posted a century in Australia.
AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket
FILE - Australia's captain Pat Cummins walks of the field, bowled by West Indies' Alzarri Joseph, on day three of the third Test cricket match at Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica, July 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan, File)
A blast of arctic air is plunging south from Canada and spreading into parts of the northern U.S., while residents of the Pacific Northwest brace for possible mudslides and levee failures from floodwaters that are expected to be slow to recede.
The catastrophic flooding has forced thousands of people to evacuate, including Eddie Wicks and his wife, who live amid sunflowers and Christmas trees on a Washington state farm next to the Snoqualmie River. As they moved their two donkeys to higher ground and their eight goats to their outdoor kitchen, the water began to rise much quicker than anything they’d experienced before.
As the water engulfed their home Thursday afternoon, deputies from the King County Sheriff’s Office marine rescue dive unit were able to rescue them and their dog, taking them on a boat the half-mile (800 meters) across their field, which had been transformed into a lake.
As the Pacific Northwest begins to recover from the deluge, a separate weather system is already bringing dangerous wind chill values — the combination of cold air temperatures and wind — to parts of the Upper Midwest.
Shortly before noon Saturday, it was minus 12 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 24 degrees Celsius) in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where the wind chill value meant that it felt like minus 33 F (minus 36 C), the National Weather Service said.
For big cities like Minneapolis and Chicago, the coldest temperatures were expected late Saturday night into Sunday morning. In the Minneapolis area, low temperatures were expected to drop to around minus 15 F (minus 26 C), by early Sunday morning. Lows in the Chicago area are projected to be around 1 F(minus 17 C) by early Sunday, the weather service said.
The Arctic air mass was expected to continue pushing south and east over the weekend, expanding into Southern states by Sunday.
The National Weather Service on Saturday issued cold weather advisories that stretched as far south as the Alabama state capital city of Montgomery, where temperatures late Sunday night into Monday morning were expected to plummet to around 22 F (minus 6 C). To the east, lows in Savannah, Georgia, were expected to drop to around 24 F (minus 4 C) during the same time period.
The cold weather freezing much of the country comes as residents in the Pacific Northwest endure more misery after several days of flooding. Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate towns in the region as an unusually strong atmospheric river dumped a foot (30 centimeters) or more of rain in parts of western and central Washington over several days and swelled rivers, inundating communities and prompting dramatic rescues from rooftops and vehicles.
The record floodwaters were expected to continue to slowly recede Saturday, but authorities warn that waters will remain high for days, and that there is still danger from potential levee failures or mudslides. There is also the threat of more rain forecast for Sunday. Officials have conducted dozens of water rescues as debris and mudslides have closed highways and raging torrents have washed out roads and bridges.
A man pushes a truck through a neigbhorhood flooded by the Skagit River on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Burlington. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)
An aerial view shows homes surrounded by floodwaters in Snohomish, Wash., Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)
Emergency crews, including National Guard soldiers, wort in a neighborhood flooded by the Skagit River on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Burlington, Wash. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)
