Embracing a fuller length keeps bowler relevant 13 years on
Broad’s adaptability has helped him become more of a threat and has breathed fresh life into his England career
‘It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives,” Charles Darwin once said. “It is the one that is the most adaptable.”
As Stuart Broad gave the latest distillation of his late-career qualities at Emirates Old Trafford, taking six wickets in seven overs across the West Indies’ first and second innings to climb to 499 Test wickets, it reaffirmed that, 13 years after his Test debut and at 34, he is still refining his game to improve.
Two years ago, it was not unreasonable to think Broad’s brilliant England career would soon be over. He seemed a bowler still capable of economy, but no longer of incisiveness. Over 17 Tests from 2016 until January 2018, he managed just 42 wickets at 38 apiece; it took him 80 deliveries to prise out each one. As England waded through the debris of another failed Ashes tour, whether they could begin a new Ashes cycle with both Broad and James Anderson was a legitimate question.
England’s next Test tour was in New Zealand in March 2018. Before the start of the series, Joe Root told Broad that England wanted to attack more with the new ball, even if it meant risking conceding more runs. In 26 Tests since, Broad has taken 100 wickets – the highest tally in the world – at 22 apiece.
The most obvious change has been his fuller length. Pitching the ball up more in Tests, especially the new ball, does two things: it increases the chances of being driven for four, but also of snaring the edge. This is a trade-off that Broad is now more willing to accept. Since the start of the 2018 summer, his length has been 41cm fuller at home. The upshot is that Broad has morphed into a bowler now more inclined to attack. In Australia in 2017-18, Broad conceded only 2.69 runs an over. But this parsimony came at the expense of venom: he took just 11 wickets – one every 106 balls – in the series.
By last summer Broad had embraced that, with the new ball, frugality should not come instead of threat. He yielded 3.49 an over in the Ashes, but in place of dour control he now had his old threat, snaring 23 wickets, one every 45 balls.
A fuller length aligned to a different approach has transformed how much Broad threatens the stumps. In 2016 and 2017, Broad took an lbw or bowled someone every 175 balls at home. Ever since, he has done so every 74 balls in England.
And so the Broad who stands one wicket away from becoming just the seventh man to reach 500 Test wickets is not merely the bowler continuing with the essential tenets that have sustained his Test career. No, he is a subtly different bowler to the one who excelled in the early to mid-2010s. A little slower, but also cleverer – bowling a fuller length, attacking more and a greater threat to left-handers. For all that Broad has the look of a prototype quick bowler, his tale is more a triumph of adaptability.
Before the Ashes last season, Nottinghamshire coach Peter Moores thought Broad was allowing batsmen to leave the ball too often. Immediately, he focused on making them play more. “Stuart adjusted a few things,” recalls Moores, who gave Broad his Test debut in 2007. “What I love about Stuart is he’s forever exploring his game – keeping the fundamental things that have made him so successful but forever trying to get better.”
Yet, even now there is just a hint that he is not quite appreciated. The understandable focus on Anderson means Broad’s status as the only Englishman to win man of the match in three series-clinching victories over Australia has been overlooked.
While they are England’s most prolific bowlers, in one way Broad is riled to be grouped with Anderson. As Broad pointed out after being omitted for the first Test, he is four years Anderson’s junior. Since Anderson turned 34 – as Broad did last month – he has taken 135 wickets, including 86 at under 18, in England. And, as Broad led the team off, the thought took hold that he might yet overhaul Anderson – now 90 wickets clear at the summit of his country’s wicket-taking charts – to become England’s top Test wicket-taker.