To dismiss Broad, says Sidebottom

hugely surprised. We get a bit too carried away with pace in this country, we always have been.

“It is like ‘we need 90mph bowlers.’ Stuart Broad has been outstanding.

“If he had had two or three bad series and was left out for this game you would have understood and he would have held his hands up as much as anyone else.

“He was bitterly disappointed in his interview and I get it.

“You want that heartfelt emotion and disappointment and you want it to come out because it means a great deal to him and it still does. Mark Wood has not played a lot of Test cricket, Jofra Archer is still learning his trade.

“This is nothing against either of them but I would have picked Stuart Broad and James Anderson on the team-sheet straight away.”

Anderson and Broad have more than 1,000 Test wickets between them but at 37 and 34 respectively, speculation has persisted for quite a while about how long they have left.

However, Sidebottom – speaking at Toft CC in Cheshire where he is an ambassador, on the day recreational cricket returned in England – added: “They are still taking wickets, they are still brilliant bowlers and let’s take age out the window.

“It should be the here and now and if they are still performing they still play.

“Broad does not play one-day stuff, there is no reason why he and Jimmy cannot play for another two or three years if they look after themselves. You play your best players and they are certainly among England’s best players.”