Stuart Broad and the three balls that hauled England back into contention
Stuart Broad #StuartBroad
Four overs into the third day at Lord’s, New Zealand had maneuvered themselves into a position of complete control: 242 runs ahead in their second innings, with six wickets in hand, and Daryl Mitchell and Tom Blundell combining for the match-defining partnership. And then, Stuart Broad happened.
Ball One
While James Anderson is widely considered the more skilful of the pair, it has been Broad who has been more prone to producing spells when he seems driven by a preternatural force, those wonderful moments when elite team sport seems nothing more than a stage for one man. Broad is the only England cricketer in history to be player of the match in three wins that have sealed a series victory over Australia.
Andy Flower, who was Broad’s head coach when England reached number one in the world in 2011, tells a story about England conducting psychological profiles of players. “The profile of Broady said that he is the type of man that could in another world be an assassin. That was amusing. Actually, when you gave it a little bit of thought and analysis you thought ‘yeah, actually, he’s got the sort of ruthless edge where he could drive the dagger home with a good twist at the end’. Broady is a bit like a shark in the water – if he smells blood he’s quite ruthless and wants to go in for the kill.”
The second new ball spells from Anderson and Broad loomed as England’s last, best chance to haul themselves back into the Test match.
From the Nursery End, Broad produced a perfect cocktail of swing, seam and bounce to kiss Mitchell’s outside edge, ending a magnificent innings. The switch had been flicked.
Ball Two
No matter his status as the second most prolific Test bowler in England history, Broad’s lengths have been a perennial debate, with many believing that he often errs a little too short. But when Broad gets into moods like this, aided by a ball offering lateral movement, his instincts are simple: pitch the ball up and attack the stumps.
He greeted Colin de Grandhomme with exactly such a ball, speared in towards his front pad. It was the trigger for a ferocious lbw appeal, the sort for which Broad is renowned.
The delivery was hurtling just down the leg side, as Paul Reiffel rightly judged. But while Broad was appealing, Ollie Pope had the enterprise and nous to hurl down de Grandhomme’s stumps. It put the seal on one of the most impressive aspects of England this Test: their markedly improved ground fielding. Three times before this Test England fielders had hit the stumps, when the batsmen were just in their crease. This time, their newfound accuracy rewarded them with a wicket.
Yet in a sense, this was Broad’s wicket too: the conviction of his appeal disorientated de Grandhomme, who took fractionally longer to return to his crease. Such is the potency of Broad in moments like this.
Only three Test cricketers in history have taken more than one hat-trick: Wasim Akram, the Australian off spinner Hugh Trumble, and Stuart Broad. The arrival of Kyle Jamieson at the crease did not give Broad the chance to snare a third – de Grandhomme was run-out, not lbw – a team hat-trick would be almost as good.
As Jamieson prepared to face up for his first ball, he was accompanied by the expectant hum of the Lord’s crowd, newly reinvigorated by the events of the first two balls. The noise reached a crescendo as Broad approached the crease – and then an entirely new level as Jamieson’s off stump was uprooted by a consummate delivery that pitched just outside off stump, seamed in a scintilla and beat the batsman’s groping defence. Broad’s reaction, wheeling away in wonder, evoked his most stupendous feat of all: his 8-15 at Trent Bridge against Australia in 2015, when he was reduced to covering his face in disbelief.
It was a moment of the sort that, when he and Anderson were dropped from England’s tour of the Caribbean in March, Broad feared he would never enjoy again. Instead, he had the crowd on the Saturday of the Lord’s Test transfixed – and, just perhaps, England on the way to marking the first game of the new McCullum-Stokes era with a stunning victory.
Team-mates follow Broad’s example
Too often in recent years – think of Lord’s against India last year, and Grenada against the West Indies in March – England have floundered against the tail, often becoming too defensive or indulging in a misguided short ball barrage. This time, despite a brief flurry from Tim Southee, England stuck to their plans, pitching the new ball up. Anderson trapped Blundell lbw for 96, and Matthew Potts added to his first innings wickets by also snaring Ajaz Patel in the same manner.
Ben Stokes then whisked Matt Parkinson into the attack to give the leg spinner the chance to bowl at the tail: Parkinson removed Southee with a classical leg break to take his first Test wicket.
Stokes will hope that it is also the prelude to his first victory as England captain.
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