England 'heartbroken' by Trott departure

Stuart Broad has described the England squad as "heartbroken" by the loss of Jonathan Trott, but insisted the team can bounce back from crushing defeat in Brisbane.

Broad enjoyed a good game personally, but was unable to prevent Australia completing a thumping win by 381 runs. To make matters worse, England were then hit by the news that their highly respected No. 3 batsmen, Jonathan Trott, would miss the rest of the series having decided to return home due to a stress-related illness.

While Trott's departure was uppermost in Broad's mind, he also admitted England had "let ourselves down" in the game. But he remained confident the team had the quality and self-belief to fight their way back into the series.

"It's heartbreaking for us to lose Trotty," Broad said. "He's been part of the side for four or five years and he's a fantastic guy. He gave us a lot of solidity in the number three spot.

"But the important thing is he's got the support of the change room he's played with for 49 Tests. Everyone's looking out for him and hopes he gets a bit of privacy at home to get himself right. We wish him very well from Australia."

While there has been furore in the media about some of the comments - on and off field - that might have contributed to the environment in which a player suffers a stress-related illness, Broad reiterated the England view that they had no problem with any of the on-field comments or actions from their Australian counterparts.

"The on-field stuff has been fine," Broad said. "You're playing in an Ashes Test match against Australia and you expect it to be tough.

"I grew up hearing all sorts of stories about sledging and on the field I don't think a line has been crossed. It's been tough, but we're grown-ups and we train ourselves to expect that."

A couple of issues do clearly still rankle, though. England remain underwhelmed by David Warner's comments made to the media during the game - comments that Alastair Cook has already described as disrespectful - and, perhaps, comments made by Darren Lehmann about Broad during the previous series in England.

"Off the field there have been some mistakes made," Broad said. "As an England side we pride ourselves on how we conduct [ourselves] about the opposition because you never know what's going on in the opposition changing rooms and lives. We just need to stay away from that. I think we have the balance okay at the moment."

Broad accepted that England's performance in Brisbane had been poor, but pointed out that it was far from unique for England to start series poorly and that their record of bouncing back was much better.

"If we judged the English cricket side on the first match of the series then we would be the worst side in the world," he said. "We don't have a good record in that. I can't put my finger on why, but it's something we need to improve.

"We let ourselves down after being in a fantastic position in that Test. We were buzzing at the end of day one after the hard work we put in.

"But we have to be honest: we lost that Test with a 50-minute bit of madness before tea on the second day and naturally we're disappointed in the way that happened. It was an odd one, because it happened so quickly and the dismissals were uncharacteristic, really. There were soft wickets that gave Australia a lift.

"But one thing that we do know is that we can get better throughout the series. We're already focused on bouncing back. This England team has done that on numerous occasions.

"We have a group of players who are strong. They know when they've made mistakes and they are putting them right. We'll be making sure we're ready for the fight again come next Thursday. We need to work on certain technical things that will help us in Adelaide and throughout this Australian tour. We owe that to the fans who have travelled over to see us and also to the changing room as well."