the times | Monday July 27 2020 2GM 63
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on the plane to Sri Lanka only by the
skin of his teeth, then spent two match-
es carrying drinks, before being
dropped for a Test in Barbados. Al-
though that was probably a mistake,
England won four Tests out of six that
winter with only marginal help from
Broad and Anderson. It was a marker.
This regime is prepared to make
ruthless decisions. Last year, Moeen Ali
was dropped from both the white-ball
side midway through the World Cup
and the Test team after the first Ashes
Test, and has barely been seen since.continued from back
Broad powers England to brinkthe right combinations
MICHAEL STEELE/GETTY IMAGESSport
good reason to be grumpy
Jonny Bairstow was similarly axed
from the Test XI and is now farther
from selection than he has been for
years; for a gun player only a few years
ago, it has been a precipitous fall. If it
can happen to them, it can happen to
others. The message is clear: the man-
agement want players whose best years
are ahead of them.
Is this wrong? Root and Silverwood
are lucky to have at their disposal six or
seven high-quality fast bowlers, as
competition for places is generally con-
sidered a good thing. The West Indies
teams of the 1980s did not seem to suf-
fer because of an over-supply of fast
bowling resources.
Broad has conceded that during
much of the time he spent on the side-
lines in the winter of 2018-19 he worked
on his game, refining his run-up and
honing his methods against left-hand-
ers (to devastating effect, as David
Warner can testify). The previous win-
ter, too, he and Anderson started bowl-
ing fuller after Root got after them
about their lengths being too short.
Players like to tell you when they
have worked on something new. They
do not often like to admit when they
have been told to change or suffer the
consequences. Some may argue that by
leaving out Broad for the first Test of
this series, the management got the
sort of response they were looking for.
Broad looks like a man who — now that
he is back in the side — is making sure
he does not put a foot wrong. When you
are one of the oldest men in the team,
that is generally how it has to be.499th Test wicket at Old Trafford. It sent the touring side reeling at six for two as they pursued a huge second-innings target with only the poor weather forecast likely to save them from series defeat
Six of Stuart Broad's dismissals in this
series have been leg-before, from two
Tests. Only during last year's Ashes
has he taken more leg-before wickets
in a seriesBroad is renowned for red-hot runs
when he steamrollers through a side.
His six for 31 yesterday means he is now
level with Shane Warne in having four
instances of taking six wickets for fewer
than 35 runs in an innings(^4) After 19
wicketless overs,
Broad has since taken 14 wickets —
more than anyone else in the series —
for 83 runs in 36 overs
36-12-83-14
Eighty-five of Broad’s 499 Test
wickets (17 per cent) have been
leg-before. In August 2016, when he
had 353 wickets, it was as low as 13.6
per cent
17%
Of Broad's wickets in England
have been bowled or
leg-before since 2018, compared with
33 per cent between 2008 and 2017
55%
One away from 500 Broad’s LBW love-in
Stuart Broad is one wicket away
from becoming the seventh man to
have 500 or more Test wickets
Muttiah Muralitharan (SL)
Shane Warne (Aus)
Anil Kumble (India)
James Anderson (Eng)
Glenn McGrath (Aus)
Courtney Walsh (WI)
Stuart Broad (Eng)
800
708
619
589
563
519
499
12
12
10
10
7
7
Most six-wicket hauls for England
Sydney Barnes
Broad
Ian Botham
Derek Underwood
Alec Bedser
George Lohmann
8
5
5
5
6
Australia (5 Tests), 2019
West Indies (2), 2020
India (5), 2018
Australia (5), 2013
Pakistan (3), 2011-12
forecast for today, they needed to leave
as much of the final two days of the Test
match available for them to bowl out
the West Indies, win the series 2-1 and
reclaim the Wisden Trophy.
Broad’s long-time new ball partner
and close friend James Anderson is the
only Englishman among the six players
to have reached the 500-wicket mile-
stone in Test matches.
Broad finished West Indies’ first in-
nings with figures of 6 for 31 and his per-
formance made Joe Root’s decision not
to use him from the start yesterday
morning appear misguided.
By the time Broad began bowling,
West Indies had scored the 33 runs
they needed to avoid the follow-
on, but he delivered a brilliant
four-over spell in which he
took 4 for 14 to run
through the tail and fin-
ish things off.
Burns, the left-hand-
er who made 90 in En-
gland’s second innings,
paid special tribute to
Broad’s ability to
trouble left-handers.
He said: “It is the an-
gles he creates, he
makes it feel like
you always have
to play at the
ball.
“His ability
to swing it
and then
straighten it
up and also
come the
other way with a leg cutter makes it a
very difficult channel to manage.
“Opening the batting is all about con-
trolling the top of your off stump and
the way Broad bowls means he is always
challenging it. I am generally stood at
gully when he is bowling so I am just
hoping I am going to catch the nicks but
it’s a great place to be when he is bowl-
ing like this.
“I didn’t realise he was on 497 as we
started the second innings, [Dom] Sib-
ley nudged me before he had bowled a
ball and said ‘you know he’s
on 497’, and I responded
‘oh we’d better catch
the nicks then’.
Burns also admitted
the weather fore-
cast had come in-
to the equation
for Root when
thinking about a
declaration.
“Tomorrow
doesn’t look that
great so we obvi-
ously accelerated
our scoring there a bit
to get ourselves into a posi-
tion to be able to declare.
“It was nice to play some
different shots, usually I
reserve them for T20
practice. Joe was going
to give me another
over to try and get
there [to a century] but
unfortunately I missed out try-
ing to hit the fence. It was good to set up
the team in a good position though.”
Anderson’s tally of 589 Test
wickets puts him fourth in
history of the game