STUART BROAD EXCLUSIVE
On sacking Cook – and why England CAN win the World Cup
FIT AND RARING TO GO
I AM feeling really good now. My rehabilitation from knee surgery has gone well, culminating in two productive weeks with the England Performance Programme in South Africa, and I’m fit and ready to play as soon as we arrive in Australia next week for the start of our buildup to the World Cup. It’s a huge thing for me to feel strong physically and mentally. I want to play as big a part as I can for England in the coming months and I’m feeling strong enough to do that now.
I see this as a bridge between two phases of my England career. The operation had to be done. It got to the stage last summer where I could only drive for 15 minutes because my knee was too sore to go any further but now I can drive from Nottingham to London and back pain-free.
The big test, of course, will be how it feels after I’ve bowled 10 overs in a match because you’re never quite sure how an injury has healed until you’ve tried it out in a match situation and seen how you feel the next day. For now I’ve done everything I can and I’m very positive and optimistic about what lies ahead.
TESTING IT OUT
The two weeks I spent in Potchefstroom were perfect for what I needed ahead of rejoining the England squad. It was a training camp purely for fast bowlers where I was able to train with coaches like Kevin Shine and Ottis Gibson, who I always enjoyed working with when he was the England fast bowling coach.
It was good, too, to spend time with so many other fast bowlers. Jimmy Anderson was there, of course, and we also had the likes of Liam Plunkett, Jack Brooks and Mark Footitt. It was also good to spend some time with Mark Wood of Durham, who is an exciting prospect. I don’t play too much county cricket so I haven’t seen much of him but he’s quick and if he can stay fit and work on his injury prevention I can see him playing for England in the near future.
The work we did was all about what’s best for fast bowlers. Some days we trained really hard and others we took it more lightly because everyone understands the demands of the job. As fast bowlers you have to take responsibility for yourself, too, and do what is best for you.
I had a week off before Christmas and it was lovely to be at home, doing normal things and enjoying my new house, but I’ve been back at work at Loughborough since, bowling seven overs on Dec 27, seven more on the 28th and seven more yesterday. I don’t usually like bowling indoors because it can be harsh on the body but the surface at the performance centre is really good.
THE YEAR AHEAD
This is England’s busiest ever year and it’s a mouth-watering prospect to look at what we’ve got ahead of us. I’ve calculated that, if all goes well and I’m fit and selected for all matches, I’ll be spending 321 nights away from home this year, which just shows you how much cricket we are playing. I’ve told my girlfriend Bealey that she should live in a caravan this year because we won’t need the house and I don’t want to pay the bills but sadly that didn’t go down too well . . .
So yes, it’s potentially a huge workload but 2015 is also a very exciting prospect and the motivation to stay fit and involved is enormous. We’re off now to play a triangular series against Australia and India ahead of the World Cup and then it’s a Test series in the Caribbean, which is one of the best and most rewarding places to play cricket.
After that we are straight into a home series against New Zealand, an Ashes summer and then off to Dubai to play Pakistan, where we lost badly last time and have to do much better. Then it’s a full tour of South Africa, which is another highlight of the calendar, so it’s all go and I would imagine it’s an exciting prospect for England supporters. A dream year for the Barmy Army!
ON TOP OF THE WORLD
So the temptation is there to look at what’s ahead of us but I’ve been around long enough to know that you shouldn’t look too far ahead in this game. We have the tri-series with India and Australia and all our thoughts are on the World Cup and doing as well as we possibly can.
I know we have been written off by a lot of people but I really do believe we can go a long way in this competition. Any side with batsmen who can score big runs as quickly as Alex Hales, Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler can’t be taken lightly and I don’t think there’s one outstanding favourite going into the tournament, as perhaps the All Blacks will be for the Rugby World Cup.
Australia will be strongly favoured in their own conditions, India will be hard to beat, and I fancy New Zealand to have a real go, particularly as they will be playing all their matches at home too. But the way the competition is structured, all of the major nations will have to have a shocker not to get to the quarter- finals and once you’re down to the last eight anything can happen.
STUCK IN THE PAST?
I’ve heard people say we play too much of an old-fashioned style of one-day cricket to make an impact at this World Cup but there are a few points to be made about that. First, you have to play it a bit oldschool in England because the ball moves around a bit more. It was playing in an ‘old-school’ way that took us to the final of the Champions Trophy in England in 2013 and we should have won that and broken our duck in global 50-over events.
That’s not to say we won’t play it very differently in Australia and New Zealand. Take Hales as an example. He averaged 25 and had a strike-rate of 70 in England last summer in ODIs but he will be looking to score much quicker at the World Cup. There will be times when our batsmen get out cheaply going for a big shot and people will have to accept that. We can’t have it all ways. If we want our team to be expansive, we will have to accept the rough with the smooth and make sure our batsmen are not inhibited or afraid to go for their shots in any way. Moeen Ali, for instance, was a revelation in Sri Lanka but he won’t come off every time.
THE BEST BUILD-UP
The schedule before this World Cup give us the best chance to arrive at our opening game against Australia at the MCG on February 14 in the best shape to do ourselves justice. I was captain at the World Twenty20 in Bangladesh last March and even though we’d spent the best part of two years planning for the tournament only about 20 per cent of our players were fully fit after a long winter in Australia. This time it’s been all one-day cricket this winter, even though conditions in Sri Lanka were very different from what we’ll be facing in Australia and New Zealand. In an ideal world it would have been nice to go to South Africa
ahead of our departure next week but the lads will have benefited from their time in Sri Lanka. You can’t read too much into the 5-2 defeat because it will be so different in the three months ahead.
CAPTAIN MORGAN And we will have a new captain going to Australia. It is hugely disappointing for Alastair Cook to miss out so close to the World Cup but the reality is that these things can happen in sport and when it happens to
This is a fresh start with a lot of exciting players in
the England
team
you, you must take it on the chin and move on. The best way to handle a setback is to be positive and refocus on what’s ahead. For instance, when I was left out during our India tour at the end of 2012, I vowed to sort out the heel problem that had been troubling me and come back refreshed and ready to go.
I did just that in New Zealand at the start of 2013 and haven’t really looked back since. What Cooky has to do now is spend some time with his wife and young daughter, have a break and come back fully refreshed in the West Indies, where you would hope he will score a lot of runs in Test cricket. Alastair’s disappointment is an opportunity for Eoin Morgan, who has had a lean time of it himself over the last year, but we have seen in the past that leadership has seemed to galvanise him and we all hope that happens again. Perhaps when Morgs has to think about all the things that he needs to consider as captain he won’t have time to think too much about his own game and that could free up his batting again. To do well at this World Cup we need Eoin Morgan firing on all cylinders.
NOT CAPTAIN BROAD
I don’t think I would have been a candidate to succeed Cooky at this World Cup because I haven’t been involved with the one-day team since we went to the West Indies ahead of going to Bangladesh. It was great fun to lead the team to victory there but I just haven’t played any 50-over cricket since then so rather than thinking of any leadership aspirations my priority has been getting fit and getting back into the team.
As for the Twenty20 captaincy, we will see what happens moving forward, but we have played so little Twenty20 cricket since Bangladesh, and have so little in the next year that I’ve not had to give any thought to my future as captain. We will see if the selectors want to unify the limited-overs captaincy, perhaps with a young leader, after the World Cup but all I’m thinking about is playing and doing my bit.
STAYING INVOLVED
A look at the fixture list inevitably raises questions about whether players can play in all forms of cricket, particularly fast bowlers, as England are the only team who play all year round, but I very much want to carry on in all three formats.
We have had to miss games and even one-day series here and there and I’m sure that will continue but I never want to be rested for any Test cricket as that remains the pinnacle for me. I’m only 28 and hope I’ve got a few years left so I want to play for my country in as many games as I can. It’s certainly easier to do that at 28 than it will be when I’m 38!
I was talking to Jimmy in South Africa and we both want to play in another couple of winning Ashes series together. Another target is the 2019 World Cup in England. There are certainly no retirement plans in any format!
TRIBUTE TO PHIL HUGHES Phil Hughes will always be on every cricketer’s mind not just in this World Cup in his home country but throughout the cricketing world in the years ahead. I have huge respect for Michael Clarke and all the Australian players over the remarkable way they have handled the tragedy that took their friend and team-mate from them and it has been an emotional time for everyone involved in the game.
The game will go on, we all know that. You just have to see the way Sean Abbott bowled a bouncer in his first over of his comeback game to realise that the game will not change. It must still be played with fire and passion and I don’t think anything will alter on the field. Yes, when anyone has been hit on the head since the accident people have rushed to them and have been visibly relieved when they have been fit enough to carry on and I’m sure that will continue in the World Cup and beyond. In many ways this tournament will be a tribute to Phil.
A FRESH START
Last year was a really tough one for English cricket in so many ways but we all sincerely hope that we don’t have to ever again go through all the scrutiny and c**p that we all had to deal with in 2014. This is a fresh start with a lot of exciting players in the England team and I honestly believe we are capable of not only winning the Ashes back this year but also being World Cup contenders. Watch this space!