How Stuart's Twitter Broadsides livened up sterile summer

HUW TURBERVILL: The newest member of Test cricket's 500 club bit back at critics across a summer which will be better remembered for events off the field, rather than on it

• On Stuart Broad, a force of nature
• Stuart Broad at 500: The Cricketer writers pick their favourite moments

Stuart Broad has had what one might describe as a lively summer. Left out of the first Test rather disastrously, he returned to take 29 wickets at 13, helping England to three wins, two draws, no defeats. He has also seemed to usher in a new era of outspokenness, which promises to be fun.

Jonathan Liew, who always writes a lively column, told Guardian readers that England had ‘a wasted summer’; the subhead read: ‘What did England discover in this series? That their 85mph seamers play well in home conditions?’

It seemed a pretty fair article, perhaps a bit glass-half-empty but each to their own, with one or two cutting lines which I will come to in a minute.

Broad took exception, however, tweeting: ‘Bowlers Historic Milestones, Crawley 267, Buttler MoS, Buttler/ Woakes incredible match-winning partnership, Stokes all round ability, Sibley monster knock & many more positives. NAH, I’ll find my different Angle.’

Bowlers Historic Milestones, Crawley 267, Buttler MoS, Buttler/ Woakes incredible match winning partnership, Stokes all round ability, Sibley monster knock & many more positives.
NAH, I’ll find my different Angle.

— Stuart Broad (@StuartBroad8) August 26, 2020

Ignoring the lack of apostrophes and hyphens, and the weird capital letters (sorry, I’m also a sub-editor), it was a dramatic intervention after decades of cricketers not saying very much, neutered by sometimes-prissy press officers.

In fact, it was Broad’s second one of the campaign, after he told Sky Sports that he had been ‘frustrated, angry and gutted’ after missing the first Test against West Indies. Liew called this a ‘hissy fit’.

Doubtless, Liew didn’t mind much reading the sycophant punters, usually hiding behind anonymity, piling in to support Broad (a phenomenon I once encountered when tangling with Gary Neville on Twitter – thousands of Manchester United fans belching such profundities as ‘Youre called huw turbervill you cant talk about anything. Get to depol (sic) immeditely’).

The barbarians truly are at the gate…

Stuart Broad on first Test omission: "I've been frustrated, angry, gutted because it is a hard decision to understand"

Broad then contributed a lively column in The Daily Mail, turning his attention to the 2021/22 Ashes, saying it’s “naive to be fixated” with 90mph bowlers, and that the focus should shift on to the batsmen.

“If you want to know what it takes to win Tests in Australia, it’s not whether you have someone who can get up to 95mph,” he said. “Glenn McGrath was still pretty useful coming up to his 37th birthday and bowling at 80mph when his team had 500 on the board. We should take the focus off which bowlers are going to be selected for that series because it’s an irrelevant conversation if you’re going to be bowled out for 200 [or] 300. You need to be reaching the 400s.”

Unless this new forthrightness is nobbled, Broad says he will carry on playing his shots: “I’m gonna start rising to it more. I think it makes me a better cricketer…”

Great!

This Twitter tussle did illustrate how the landscape is shifting for journalists, though. We live in an era of increased attention and sympathy for mental-health problems. So when Liew and others write lines like “Dom Bess, the sort of spinner who would barely give Austria’s batsmen sleepless nights, let alone Australia’s," then there is an impact.

‘The times’, as Mark ‘Bob Dylan’ Butcher sang, ‘they are a-changin!’

So how was the summer for you? Liew and Scyld Berry thought it didn’t teach us much, Vic Marks and Rob Bagchi seemed to love it (all these articles were good reads but you may have to navigate paywalls in some cases to find them). 

^{By the end of the summer, Stuart Broad was working with the media in the form of Sky Sports}

I have worked out a formula for how much I enjoyed the Tests:

Y (how good people are saying it was) minus Z (gratitude that we had it at all) = X (how good it really was). There was some terrible weather – expected in Manchester’s case, unexpected in Southampton’s.

That only two venues were used was understandable, if a bit bland – now we know how fans of Zimbabwe cricket feel – although Harare and Bulawayo, with jacarandas blooming, are rather wonderful.

In both series, the tourists’ challenge petered out, and I can’t help wondering if that was because boredom in the bio-bubble had set in. I know many modern tourists opted for the Xbox over the Taj Mahal before the pandemic, but still.

Some passages of play were outstanding, however: West Indies’ win, watching Pakistan’s seamers operate in the first Test and the astonishing twists in the tale/tail when Jos Buttler and Chris Woakes guided England to victory, silencing critics/rediscovering batting form respectively.

It didn’t look as if we would get any Tests this year, so we should be grateful really.

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