Story by[]BBCTue, December 2, 2025 at 10:09 AM UTC·2 min readBBC Test Match Special commentator Henry Moeran has been speaking to some former England players about their experience of playing in Brisbane, known as 'The Gabbatoir' by locals because of how difficult it is for touring teams to win there. The second Test of the current series begins in the Queensland capital on Thursday at 04:00 GMT. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThree-time Ashes winner Steven Finn felt the intimidation of the Gabba as a 21-year-old: "The first day of the Ashes series in 2010, when Andrew Strauss got out in the first over, the noise was all too much."I was watching in the viewing gallery for that first over, heard the noise, felt the rumbles of the stadium and then thought 'I'm disappearing back down to the dressing room to watch it on a TV screen' because it was so intense."For so long the venue for the opening game of the Ashes, this year Brisbane and its passionate fans have had to wait for their chance to get stuck into the tourists, something they will relish."I remember on the journey to the ground, people were already there lining up on the streets. You have to wait in a holding pattern to be let into the stadium to drive underneath and then around the concourse," says Finn. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"You've got people coming up to the bus, banging on the windows, corkscrew hats, everything that stereotypically you would imagine is going to happen did happen to us while we were there."Phil Tufnell played at the Gabba in an Ashes Test in 1994, and remembers the welcome all too well: "They get stuck into you on the boundary and they'll give you all sorts of stuff there, that is for sure."There used to be a hill where I used to field down at third man and fine leg and at about four o'clock the sky went black with beer cans."There was a can fight, which apparently they'd do every day in the old ground. It was pegging off everywhere!".