ENGLAND’S PACE PAIR WILL DESERVE A FITTING FAREWELL FUTURES UNCERTAIN FOR LEGENDS
THESE days, little is debated in English cricket quite like the futures of Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad.
To get every last ounce out of the ageing champions, or to move on to younger, faster blood, as England did this week by breaking up the duopoly in favour of Jofra Archer and Mark Wood?
The pair have been steadfast: there is plenty left in the tank. The numbers back them up. Since turning 35 three years ago, Anderson averages 20. Since some technical changes at the start of last year, Broad — who is 34 — averages 24. Anderson alone has had recent injury issues.
Last night, both had reason to be miffed. Broad because he is watching from his balcony, Anderson because his toil was rewarded with just one wicket. It was his 585th Test dismissal, exactly 100 more than Broad, who sought clarification from chief selector Ed Smith over his future and made clear his feelings about being overlooked on Sky this morning. “I’m quite pleased I feel frustrated, gutted and angry, because if I didn’t, I feel I’d have a different decision to make,” he said. “I’m not a particularly emotional person but I’ve found the last couple of days quite tough. I’ve probably bowled the best I’ve ever bowled the last couple of years. I felt it was my shirt.”
Unselected players watching is just one of the strange things about cricket inside the biosecure bubble.
Wood said last night that the game is not that different. Certainly, England still have batting collapses, umpires still take us off for maddening weather-related delays and the brilliant West Indies attack have allayed worries about the need for saliva on the ball. There are positives, though. Fewer people in the ground means you get to hear, in all its potty-mouthed glory. No fans, fundamentally, is less fun. The game has fewer sights and sounds and does not live, breathe and bounce along like Test cricket in this country does and should.
No one is to blame for this, but there is no point denying it, either. The sooner we can safely get people back in, the better. Hopefully, that will be next summer, but who knows?
Which brings us back to Anderson and Broad. Cricket does a great line in farewells. In a perfect world, England’s Test summer was due to end in Nottingham against Pakistan next month. Trent Bridge is Broad’s home ground and the scene of his epic Ashes eight for 15 in 2015. Anderson has 64 wickets at under 20 there, including seven five-fers.
Both love the place and, given England’s next Test assignment was not due until after Christmas in India (hardly an ageing seamer’s dream), would have considered strolling off into the Nottingham sunset, perhaps even together. Their post-playing careers — Anderson with the BBC and Broad with Sky — are lined up. They would likely have passed 600 and 500 wickets each by then.
This summer’s equivalent is to slink off in a headband with barely a soul in the ground but your team-mates, some of whom are bringing you drinks wearing plastic gloves, while others watch on from the balcony of their hotel rooms. The fairytale farewell granted two years ago to their mate Alastair Cook — a hundred in front of an adoring Oval crowd — it is not. No family in attendance (apart from match referee Chris Broad), no friends and little fanfare.
The experience this week will have only strengthened their conviction to play on another year, maybe even to the Ashes in 18 months. Covid-19 means England’s winter schedule is now a mystery, so a long rest may be on the way. There is a risk in waiting for the perfect farewell, of course, they may not go out on their own terms, either through injury or because they outstay their welcome.
Particularly for a great showman such as Broad, that is surely a risk worth taking, because no one who has experienced even a fraction of what they have would want this to be their last hurrah.