Cricket has always had its characters, and English cricket especially so. In these days of cricket pros being super-fit athletes, the likes of pie-loving Mike Gatting or Phil Tufnell taking a last puff on his cigarette might be gone. But thankfully, there is still room for players to have their little eccentricities.
Stuart Broad is a case in point. At 36, he’s one of England’s elder statesmen now, but he still has that boyish charm and a mischievous glint in his eye. Here are five reasons why every cricket enthusiast should have a little love for Stuart Broad.
The outrageous appeals
Huge appeal from Broad! It’s a phrase that should be at the top of every test match bingo card. From fist pumping the dismissal after thumping Agar’s front pad to that famous run towards the slips, fingers wagging above his head, the last thing on Broad’s mind is to turn to the umpire for an answer to what is supposed to be a question.
There’s even a word for it now - the celebrappeal and the look of almost paternal pride on his face from mid off as he sees a young protege like Jofra Archer pull off a fair celebrappeal of his own is a joy to behold.
The bursts of genius
Every test match in which he plays has those moments when Broad looks like the weak link in the attack and even his staunchest fans wonder whether his time has passed. And then he has one of those spells and turns the game on its head. At Lords in the first test, it was those five minutes of madness on the third day that saw three New Zealand wickets fall in three balls.
The thing is, we could all see it coming. Moments before, Broad was geeing up the crowd and generating noise, after a soporific period of the game, there was suddenly a feeling of madness in the air. Broad has done it time and again, and it can change the course of a match, or in this case an entire series, in seconds.
The batsman turned slogger
Back in 2010, Broad scored a sublime 169, seemingly securing his place as the answer to England’s all-rounder problems. All that came to an end in 2014, when a bouncer from Varun Aaron shattered Broad’s nose and his confidence.
Broad’s days as a batsman in the classical sense were over, but he reinvented himself into the sort of lower order slogger who can destroy bowling figures and possibly windows in what is usually a brief but entertaining tenure at the crease.
The greatest bromance in England history
In 2007, Anderson and Broad first shared the new ball for England. 15 years later, they are still there. It’s an unprecedented partnership, and while the “bromance” tag is purely tongue in cheek, there’s no denying they make the archetypal odd couple. Anderson, the famously taciturn Yorkshireman who prefers to keep himself to himself and Broad with his blonde locks, his public school accent and his taste for pranks have made a partnership that will go down in history. Let’s continue to enjoy it while we still can.