Stuart Broad

[thierry henry]

Jeez, he-men out in force in this thread

Personally I think sportsmen generally look substantially older than non-sportsmen of the same age.

My missus even commented on how old David Beckham himself looks recently. Now that he's hanging with Hollywood types he is starting to look haggard compared to men who are 10-15 years older than himself.

Also, most of the cricketers I have met are pretty big guys (interestingly, JimmyGS commented recently that all but 2 of the current Black Caps are "overweight" according to BMI standards). Generally substantially above average height (which results in a lot of average to above-average height international cricketers getting referred to as "short").

 

[nightprowler10]

So how well did he bowl for this fiver?

 

[ozone]

So how well did he bowl for this fiver?

Fairly well TBH. Slow pitch and it was very hot yesterday and he still did his job well. Definately improved his worth to England and probably guaranteed himself at least 2 more tests.

 

[wpdavid]

Fairly well TBH. Slow pitch and it was very hot yesterday and he still did his job well. Definately improved his worth to England and probably guaranteed himself at least 2 more tests.

As I said elsewhere, he's worth his place in a five-man attack imo. Not so if we only play four.

 

[ozone]

As I said elsewhere, he's worth his place in a five-man attack imo. Not so if we only play four.

Yea definately, but if we play a four man attack including Flintoff, and expect him to stay fit it would be unimaginably stupid.

 

[wpdavid]

Yea definately, but if we play a four man attack including Flintoff, and expect him to stay fit it would be unimaginably stupid.

Absolutely.

 

[Pigeon]

Broad is back to where he belongs in my opninon. Will he and Panesar get the boot in the next match?

 

[wfdu_ben91]

Pah. Could set your watch to his haircut:

Pietersen reminds me of Brendan Fevola. Capable of doing special things in their respective sport, but are overally controverisal and self-centred. They look kind of similar aswell.

 

[DaRick]

However talented Broad may be, currently he is just a bits-and-pieces allrounder. He is not good enough to maintain a place in the side with either bat or ball right now.

With the bat, he seems useful and technically reasonable (although unsteady against decent offspin), but fails to capitalise on his starts. As such, he averages 27 or so.

With the ball, he seems to be an attempted line-and-length merchant. I say 'attempted' because he is not accurate enough to be one. He bowls too many poor balls. He also cannot seam the ball consistently enough to make the batsman watchful, either...and he doesn't bowl as quickly or generate as much bounce as he could with his height. Compare his typical bouncer (which seems to be relatively harmless) to Mitchell Johnson's when he is on song (and Johnson isn't as tall).

 

[PhoenixFire]

However talented Broad may be, currently he is just a bits-and-pieces allrounder. He is not good enough to maintain a place in the side with either bat or ball right now.

With the bat, he seems useful and technically reasonable (although unsteady against decent offspin), but fails to capitalise on his starts. As such, he averages 27 or so.

With the ball, he seems to be an attempted line-and-length merchant. I say 'attempted' because he is not accurate enough to be one. He bowls too many poor balls. He also cannot seam the ball consistently enough to make the batsman watchful, either...and he doesn't bowl as quickly or generate as much bounce as he could with his height. Compare his typical bouncer (which seems to be relatively harmless) to Mitchell Johnson's when he is on song (and Johnson isn't as tall).

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Langeveldt]

He's got a very punchable face, and annoys me a lot.. He's a good batsman though

 

[Pizzorno]

If Broad plays at Lords we lose the Ashes. It's as simple as that. I really like Broad but atm he is nowhere near good enough to be playing against Australia.

And on the subject of punchable faces, Michael Clarke is the absolute king of them. I dunno what it is about him, I just want to deck him so hard several times.

 

[sledger]

His style of batting reminds me very much of Marcus Trescothick for some reason.

 

[SJS]

If Broad plays at Lords we lose the Ashes. It's as simple as that. I really like Broad but atm he is nowhere near good enough to be playing against Australia.

And on the subject of punchable faces, Michael Clarke is the absolute king of them. I dunno what it is about him, I just want to deck him so hard several times.

I am not a violent man but I must confess this thought has crept across my mind too, pretty often actually

 

[Son Of Coco]

I think Broad may have suffered the same unwarranted boost some of the other players in the team got from playing the West Indies at home recently. It was always going to be hard for the seamers on the Cardiff pitch, and he may well perform better on pitches more suited to his type of bowling, but the fact that next to none of the English bowlers were prepared to take the fight to Australia (Freddy excepted during certain periods) doesn't say much for their abilities to stand up and do their best no matter what the situation is.

He might turn out to be a good player yet, but he has a lot to learn about dealing with the different situations test matches throw up. Given he bowled pretty well on some flatter decks in the West Indies he's not incapable of doing well on them. Maybe a rest for a while would do him some good. But I hope he plays the next test

 

[Athlai]

I was really impressed by his pace but he ain't anywhere near being a good enough Test bowler to be having such a vital place in England's attack.

 

[Pup Clarke]

Think this is all a bit OTT tbh. He's actually had a pretty good last half dozen or so Tests and think he deserves at least the Lord's test to show what he's worth because he can definitely bowl much, much better than he did.

I doubt he'll be dropped for the next test because England have a view that "This team got us into this mess, they'll get us out" sort of mentality.

 

[Athlai]

Well yeah only Monty should be dropped.

 

[marc71178]

I doubt he'll be dropped for the next test because England have a view that "This team got us into this mess, they'll get us out" sort of mentality.

I think it's inconceivable that all 5 of the bowlers could be that bad a second time in a row, so the number of changes should be minimal and conditions/injury based.

 

[King Pietersen]

Broad'll keep his place if fit. He's been in very good form in the past few months, he's got wickets consistently in all forms and has started to really look the part, just had a bad game. If we're dropping guys after 1 bad game, then we're going to have an almost completely changed XI bar Collingwood, Prior and Anderson. I'm backing Broad to have a good series still.