Stuart Broad hasn’t really been taking wickets in Tests, but in one-day internationals he’s been increasingly incisive. Even so, 5-23 against South Africa is a Will Jefferson step for him.

He hasn’t got any more talent than he had this time last week, but hopefully this kind of domination of a top batting line-up will give him a sense of certainty in his own decisions and actions that will allow him to do the right sorts of things on flatter tracks than this.

And he should feel buoyed. Look at who his wickets were: Graeme Smith, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Jean-Paul Duminy and Johan Botha. No tail-enders there and that first trio have torn so many bowlers a new one that there’s a massive ‘new one’ surplus the size of Dhaulagiri somewhere near Cape Town.

Technically Trent Bridge is Broad’s home ground, but it barely counts because he was at Leicestershire last year and has been with England most of this year. Trent Bridge is good to English bowlers full stop. Obviously this means that it isn’t hosting an Ashes Test - just like that other deliriously happy hunting ground, Old Trafford.

Tags: England, Stuart Broad by King Cricket
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What were you doing when you were 21 or 22? We were mostly not leaving our room for weeks on end and feeling kind of numb inside. Not Stuart Broad and Ravi Bopara. They were exhibiting extraordinary amounts of steel in rescuing a disastrous one-day international run chase in front of thousands and thousands of people.

We’re not sure the scale of their achievement was properly expressed in the highlights. India had been dispatched for just 212. England had just lost the only batsman who’d seemed remotely competent - Paul Collingwood - and had fallen to 114-7. It was only the 24th over. Wickets had been tumbling.

Again and again we’d hoped someone would stick around and again and again batsmen hadn’t. Paul Collingwood had looked likely and now he’d gone. The English supporters in the crowd had given up and were occupying themselves by starting Mexican waves and shouting at the stewards. This was the context of the match.

The crowd were to entertain themselves for quite a bit longer, but we were watching. Stuart Broad and Ravi Bopara went about their business and about an hour later they’d started to win the crowd back over. They faced and conquered every Indian bowler with excellent shots, sensible thinking and some great cheeky-bastard singles.
Slowly, one by one, people said to each other: ‘Listen. Put down the beer snake. Something’s happening here.’

THAT’S the scale of the achievement. Stuart Broad and Ravi Bopara batted so well and rescued what had seemed such a lost cause that drunk England fans, at the end of the day, when they’d been drinking for the longest, actually put down their beer snakes and watched the cricket in near-silence.

That’s some performance.

England v India, fourth one-day international at Old Trafford
India 212 (Yuvraj Singh 71, Sachin Tendulkar 55, Stuart Broad 4-51, James Anderson 3-38)
England 213-7 (Stuart Broad 45 not out, Ravi Bopara 43 not out, Ajit Agarkar 4-60)

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Tags: England, India, Ravi Bopara, Stuart Broad by King Cricket
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We made Stuart Broad one of our ones to watch this season. Despite that endorsement, we’ve not been fully-convinced of his worth yet. A lot of hyperbole’s been spat in his direction and we weren’t really sure where it was coming from.

We think we get it now.

It wasn’t so much the way he bowled. We knew he could bowl. It wasn’t so much the way he batted. We knew he could bat. It was the simple fact that he batted so well, for so long, from that position and that he saw it through to the end.

We just thought: Here is a cricketer you want in your team. Batsman, bowler, whatever. Just get him in the team.

Tags: England, Stuart Broad by King Cricket
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Here’s a short list of some of our ones to watch over the last couple of years:

• Stuart Broad
• Bilal Shafayat
• Will Jefferson
• Mark Davies

What do you notice? That’s right. All of them have moved to Nottinghamshire since we identified them, albeit only on loan in Mark Davies’ case.

What’s going on? Are the Nottinghamshire management using King Cricket in some form of unofficial consultancy capacity? Don’t do that. We don’t support you. We support Lancashire.

That does it. Next year we’re going to name Ajit Agarkar as an excellent potential overseas signing. How d’you like them apples, Nottinghamshire? Eh? Eh? How d’you like that, we said? Yeah, we’re talking to you.

Tags: Stuart Broad, county cricket, ones to watch by King Cricket
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