BROAD TAKES Bowls costliest Test over in
5TH TEST, DAY TWO: ENGLAND v INDIA
STUART BROAD is already in the record books for being hit for six sixes by Yuvraj Singh in an over against India in at20 in 2007. And he is now in it for the most expensive over in Test history as well having been hammered for 35 by Jasprit Bumrah on day two here at Edgbaston.
On a chastening day for England, which saw them let India wriggle off the hook to post 416 all out and then reduce Ben Stokes’s men to 84-5, 332 adrift, it was the England bowler hanging his head.
Jimmy Anderson admitted England were up against it but insisted they were ready to fight fire with fire.
“We’ve been in this position before this summer so it’s a case of trying to come back,” he said.
“We’ve got plenty of guys in the dressing room willing to fight and get back into this game and that’s what we’ve got to do.”
In between rain breaks, which allowed just over 35 overs, Broad brought up a 550th Test wicket – but was then brought back crashing down to earth by the stand-in
India captain.
Broad’s travails will go down in the scorers’ book as 4, 5w, 7nb, 4, 4, 4, 6, 1 but the momentum shift not recorded was every bit as significant.
It allowed India to add 41 in just 2.3 overs to go from 375-9 to 416.
“On another day one of those top edges goes straight to hand. If that gets taken nobody talks about the over. I thought it was pretty unlucky,” said Anderson.
It was a bad day which got much worse as India’s bowlers then tore through England’s top order to leave them well behind the eight ball going into day three.
England will take heart from the the fact that it was from similarly shaky ground that India launched a quite superb counter attack on the opening day.
And in Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow they certainly have the right blend of quality and aggression with which to do just that.
But against this bowling attack, that will be difficult.
It had taken England an hour to finish off the Indian innings in the morning session and it saw Broad post two milestones in his already long Test career, one strived for and the other one he would rather not have reached at all. It was