I really did think of quitting
Stuart Broad on the shock of being axed and why he wants to play at top for years
STUART BROAD mentions Tom Brady and volunteers that tomorrow is Brady’s birthday. He knows the greatest quarterback in the history of American football is 42 and that he is about to turn 43. He knows he played in four Super Bowls for the New England Patriots since he turned 37 and won three of them. He knows he won the Super Bowl when he was 41. And he knows that even though Brady has now moved to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, America is still rooting for him.
In England, Broad thinks, we do things differently. We treat age differently. In sport, we treat age as a criminal and we try to banish the player it is accosting. And it does not matter whether the player is bowling better than he has ever bowled before and with more hunger than he has ever had and is fitter than he has ever been and whose numbers keep getting better and who wins and wins and wins.
The sub-text here is the first Test against the West Indies last month when Broad, who is 34, was startled and upset when he was dropped. The sub-text here is that when he was recalled, he responded with 16 wickets in two matches at an average of just over 10. In the course of those match- winning performances, he became only the fourth seam bowler in history to take 500 Test wickets.
Shane Warne, the great Australian spinner who is one of only six bowlers to have taken more Test wickets than Broad, mused publicly that Broad could go on to take 700 wickets and not settle for 500 or 600. And so it is hardly surprising that Broad is becoming exasperated by the juxtaposition of his greatness with the selectors’ willingness to jettison him and the recurring question: ‘ Is this the beginning of the end for Broad?’
IT IS not that he feels his numbers entitle him to a place in the team. Broad does not get carried away with what he has achieved. He says that being among the top seven wickettakers ever to have played the game does not put him even in the top 20 bowlers in the sport’s history. He talks about watching his great bowling partner, Jimmy Anderson, in t he nets, open- mouthed in admiration for Anderson’s control and skill.
‘I watch Jimmy in training sometimes and I think “Wow”,’ says Broad. ‘He has got it on a piece of string. I can’t do that. My biggest strength is internal. I am competitive. I have a steel about me that will never give up in any way shape or form and I think you can win from any position. I like to think I can cause momentum shifts in matches. There is something in that mindset that keeps me going.’
He is right to be exasperated by being dropped. Why else would you treat a bowler like Broad, indisputably one of England’s all- time greats, who has just returned his best fitness results ever, who played a leading role in the series win in South Africa last winter, whose cold, hard statistics say he is bowling better than ever, and leave him in his bio-secure hotel room at the Ageas Bowl while you pick what you say is your strongest team without him?
‘Maybe this was another reset,’ says Broad from the study of his home near Trent Bridge, a photograph of Newlands in Cape Town hanging on the wall behind him. ‘I just don’t want another one in 18 months time. Maybe I am just a bit fed up of them. I am not an arrogant person but I would be disappointed if this discussion came up in the next two years again but maybe you just have to keep proving people wrong.
‘ Maybe t hat ’s what I need. Actually, no, it’s not. Because it’s exhausting having to do it all the time. Do I think I’m in England’s best XI? Absolutely. Do I think Jimmy Anderson is in England’s best XI? Absolutely. Did last week probably prove that? I’ll leave that up to you.’
Again, it is hard to argue against him. ‘Into the gallery of greats he goes,’ said Michael Atherton on Sky as Broad trapped Kraigg Brathwaite lbw in the third Test at Old Trafford for the landmark dismissal. And yet even as Broad walked through the doorway into the pantheon of the greatest bowlers, he was still smarting from the impression there are those who cannot wait to pension off him and Anderson, who is four years older than him and 11 shy of 600 wickets, to cricket’s retirement home.
‘The one thing that does really interest me,’ says Broad, ‘is we are a natural partnership but we do get put in the same bracket all the time. People say: “When Anderson goes, Broad will go.” I mean, I am four years younger than him. He is 38, I am 34. That’s quite a big difference in sport. If someone is 23 and 27, you are writing or saying completely different things about them.
‘I feel like sometimes I get written off very quickly, which was highlighted at the start of this summer. There was a lot more of the “This is the beginning of the end of Broad” stuff. This isn’t me comparing myself or Jimmy to Tom Brady but if Tom Brady was English, do you think he would still be playing and do you think he would be lauded like he is at 42, nearly 43?
‘I feel like he would have been under pressure to go eight years ago. The Americans are like “Yeah, come on Brady, keep going”, whereas in England people say “Let’s have the next generation, move them on, move them on”. There is no doubt that Jimmy and I have got better. No doubt. The stats don’t lie on that.
‘I am a much better cricketer now at 34 than I was at 24. I might have been more exciting when I was 24 or have been more unpredictable so a bit more interesting to watch, but there is no doubt that a captain would rather have me bowling for him now than when I was 24.
‘I have seen a lot of numbers over the past week since I took my 500th wicket. The last 18 months, I have been averaging 20.5 per wicket in Test cricket. Take age out of that. If anyone were doing that at any age, you would want to keep them around the team for a bit and not look past it.
‘I don’t know if it’s a culture thing, always looking to the next thing. In
English cricket, we are always planning for an Ashes cycle. That’s the goal but sometimes we forget about winning right now. There’s a balance. I believe I can perform in Australia in 18 months’ time and my record is suggesting I can. I have got a huge, burning desire to go and win in Australia and generally when I have got a burning desire like that, I can drive things forward.’
The fact that the pain of being dropped is still jostling with the satisfaction of being anointed one of the greats tells you everything you need to know about Broad. He is intensely driven. He is sad that cricket is playing to empty stadiums. He misses the crowds. He knows how important the fans can be to the momentum of a match. But, ultimately, he says, the hunger comes from within. The fans are important but it is the contest that consumes him.
But being in England’s bio-secure bubble at the Ageas Bowl in Hampshire for the first Test made his bewilderment at being left out worse. There was no sanctuary. He could not go home to spend time with his girlfriend, Mollie, or with
A captain would rather have me bowling for him now than when I was 24