On Stuart Broad, a force of nature

NICK FRIEND: Wherever he has stepped, theatre has often followed. It is ingrained deep within him, the very essence of what has made him the cricketer he is: a creator of excitement and moments and of something from nothing. Maybe, he is the theatre

This piece was originally published on thecricketer.com in July 2020

In the end, the only surprise was that it didn’t happen on Sunday night. Nobody writes their scripts quite like Stuart Broad: a force of nature and a generational athlete.

On Sunday, he created drama where there was none to create; for the first time in this sanitised series, played out in front of empty stands and in eerie silence, suddenly there was an atmosphere. He galloped in, headband in tow. You could hear the roar of a baying crowd even though, of course, there wasn't one. But that is the marvel of Broad – he brings you with him. Here he was, operating a cappella but still with the same snarling intensity as ever.

I think we always wanted to believe it was the other way round: that he crowd-surfed and fed off us, the watching, howling public; that his wickets were also ours. There is no debate that the two have been intertwined at times, that his forcefield has swelled almost irrepressibly amid a backdrop of pantomime and melodrama.

But in the last fortnight, as so often in one of the more remarkable England careers, Broad was both conductor and orchestra – the noise but also its cause. 

When he spoke ahead of this unusual international summer, he admitted that it might challenge him more than most. How would he rev himself up without the same scent of spectacle? From where might he find the energy reserves to unleash one of those spells?

And then, he was left out. Stuart Broad. Left out of an England team, in England, for the first time since 2012.

A senseless decision when it was made three weeks ago, it has only worsened with age. If this was its desired effect – to fire up Broad into the kind of unstoppable frenzy in which he so excels, then it has worked a treat: his pace has been up, his expression full of deranged willpower.

But its logic was, at best, unfounded. Looking back now, it verged on negligence. And Broad took it as such – a personal affront, a dent to his pride, a rejection unwarranted on recent evidence.

“To say I am disappointed would be an understatement,” he said. “I've been frustrated, angry, gutted because it is a hard decision to understand.

“I've probably bowled the best I've bowled in the last couple of years. I felt like it was my shirt. I've been in the team particularly in the Ashes and going to South Africa and winning there.

“I don't think I've got anything to prove. England know what I can do, the selectors know what I can do. When I get that opportunity again you can bet that I'll be on the money.”

^{Broad's finest hour? The seamer leads England off after his spell of 8 for 15 won England the 2015 Ashes}

By that point, his icy stare had melted into a knowing, devious smirk. It takes a rare personality to lay your cards on the table as he did, but Broad had read this one before: written off as a 34-year-old apparently beyond the peak of his powers, a bowler operating in fits and spurts, reliant on flashes of magic, not as menacing as he once was.

Rubbish. Doubters of Broad are doubters of greatness. The idea that he should be protected and wound down like an ageing racehorse disrespects an extraordinary career and his commitment to his own longevity.

Since James Anderson turned 34 back in 2016, he has added 135 Test wickets. Were Broad to match that figure, then he would overtake his great mate’s current haul. And while that is an arbitrary, abstract fling into the future, at the very least it explains Broad’s own dismay at being informed that he is reaching his own natural end. Since his debut in December 2007, only Anderson has claimed more victims – Broad is 112 ahead of Rangana Herath, his nearest rival.

In the same timeframe, no one has played more Tests. In the game’s history, only three seamers have had the juice in their legs to deliver more balls. When Anderson has been absent from England’s line-up, leaving Broad as the undisputed leader of the attack, his average has dropped from 28 to 25.65 – a statistic that includes his finest hour in Nottingham as he rolled Australia in double-quick time. There was no Anderson that day, but guess who stepped up.

When Michael Vaughan argued following the conclusion of last year’s Ashes series that the pair should be rotated and no longer operate in tandem, Broad retorted in his Mail on Sunday column that even the suggestion was “a load of nonsense”. Two months earlier, he had finished as the second-highest wicket-taker on either side, taking David Warner’s wicket seven times in 10. Since 2018, only Nathan Lyon and Pat Cummins worldwide have more Test wickets.

He is in the midst of a curious prime – less a second wind, certainly not an Indian summer, more a reinvention. Criticised in the past for his own stubbornness, he has undergone multiple adaptations: there was a spell as allrounder-in-waiting and another as de facto enforcer, while England’s ascent to No.1 in the world almost a decade ago centred around a frugal economy. Now, however, boring batsmen out has become blasting them out.

In the last two years, he has bowled more than a foot fuller on home soil than previously; his percentage of bowled and lbw dismissals has skyrocketed. It is no exaggeration to suggest that he is the world game’s in-form seamer; he is the World Test Championship’s leading wicket-taker – granted, having played more games.

Rather than being bathed and pampered, Broad would rather be unleashed. He knows his shelf-life, but he also knows his worth. There was no hint of arrogance when he laid on the line his anger at being overlooked at the Ageas Bowl, only cold facts informed by an everlasting self-belief.

^{Broad is presented with his Test cap on debut in Sri Lanka in 2007}

In simple terms, consider the following. Muttiah Muralitharan, Shane Warne, Anil Kumble, Anderson, Glenn McGrath, Courtney Walsh, Dale Steyn, Kapil Dev, Rangana Herath, Richard Hadlee, Shaun Pollock, Harbhajan Singh, Wasim Akram, Curtly Ambrose are the 15 men to have surpassed the 400-wicket mark in Test cricket. Broad sits seventh – still marginally behind Walsh, but well ahead of Steyn. How many of those – each with a seat in the pantheon of all-time greats – would ever have been left out or have their futures marked for them?

Reaching 500 takes Broad into a new league: an elite group of 15 becomes a list of seven, an outrageous effort for anyone, let alone a seamer who has put so much into so many years. And in a sense, his name will sit unique at that table of phenomenal bowlers. All have their hallmarks that stand them out – Warne for the mastery of his art, Muralitharan for his distinctiveness, Anderson for his ability to swing the ball at will, but none perhaps are quite so associated with their individual spells as Broad.

For 6 for 17 at Johannesburg, see 6 for 50 at Chester-le-Street. For 8 for 15 at Trent Bridge, take 7 for 44 at Lord’s. For 5 for 37 at The Oval, I raise you 6 for 25 at Old Trafford.

And among them, he has dismissed Warner 12 times; Michael Clarke on 11 occasions; Ross Taylor and AB de Villiers 10 apiece; Steve Smith, Hashim Amla, Shane Watson and Chris Rogers have fallen eight times each.

Of the 17 players he has removed in at least six innings, only two – Kemar Roach and Mitchell Johnson – are not batsmen of note. Other regular victims include Azhar Ali, MS Dhoni, Brendon McCullum, Ajinkya Rahane, Younis Khan and Tom Latham. He has accounted for Virat Kohli and Shivnarine Chanderpaul five times each.

But then, none of that should surprise you, really. Because the best hunt the best. Just look at the company in which Broad finds himself. He’s not there by accident. It is too simplistic to categorise him as a knee-pumping streak merchant. You don’t achieve what he has achieved without being worth far more than that. He is – and has long been – world-class. Often, even his aura alone has been too great a weapon for many: it takes a special character to turn so many games so single-handedly.

When Broad wondered ahead of this summer how he might fare without the same sense of theatre, perhaps he was missing something. For, wherever he has stepped, theatre has often followed. It is ingrained deep within him, the very essence of what has made him the cricketer he is: a creator of excitement and moments and of something from nothing. Maybe, just maybe, he is the theatre.

Only the very best write their own scripts. And there have been few better scriptwriters than Stuart Christopher John Broad, a taker of 500 Test wickets – and surely many more.

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