England former greats have lined up to pay tribute to Stuart Broad as the bowler confirmed that the final Ashes Test at The Oval will be his last for the national side.
Michael Vaughan and Alistair Cook, who both captained Broad, gave glowing reviews of his time, with Vaughan calling him ‘Mr Ashes’.
“There have been quicker bowlers, more skilful bowlers — but not many cleverer bowlers,” he wrote in The Telegraph.
“And it’s that smartness, together with his relish for the big moments, that have got him over 600 Test wickets. I always thought he could be special — but no one could have predicted that. He’s had such a remarkable career.
“Broad’s been Mr Ashes. If you were ever going to put an England jersey on the wall and you want all your young kids to look up to the jersey and underneath it what it represents — I’d just say Broad.
“The Ashes is the pinnacle for all England players. He’s brought that competitive edge, that strong mentality, that will to win, that drive, the fun — those facial expressions even.
“We even saw that competitiveness with his stunt against Marnus Labuschagne on day two at The Oval. Stuart’s always trying things, always in the contest. He’s everything that you’d want from an England man playing Test cricket.”
Cook described his willingness to get stuck in and improve himself as his greatest quality.
“I scored a double hundred against Stuart Broad at schoolboy level,” he wrote in The Times. “Back then he was a batsman who bowled a bit. If you’d told me then that he would go on to take more than 600 Test wickets, I would have said you’d been out in the sun too long.
“And this is the thing we need to understand. There was nothing pre-ordained about Broad’s rise to the top. Yes, he had the Ashes-winning father and the blond, boyish looks, and he was fast-tracked into the England set-up at the age of 20. Yet throughout his career he has worked bloody hard to show his worth at international level.
“He had to grind away — believe me, I was there. Yes, it was clear from his early twenties that he could bowl, but a match-winner who could sense the big moment and make it his? Even when he and Jimmy were made England’s new-ball partnership on the New Zealand tour, I’m not sure too many thought of him that way.
“But that’s what he became. I have heard people say that they knew when Broad was on a roll because they could see his legs pumping extra hard, the knees rising that little bit more.
“I stood in the slips on many occasions and I must confess I never saw that. What I did see was the look that came over him, the intensity and competitiveness that created an aura around him and a buzz which his team-mates could feed off.
“Another England bowler may come along in the next decade with as much talent, but I will be staggered if we see one who can seize the initiative as he did.”
On the day’s play, it was another that was cast as a battle between old and new forms of Test cricket.
“It was their best batting of the series, and the fullest expression yet of Ben Stokes’s way of playing,” wrote Andy Bull in The Guardian.
“Mick Jagger was watching from the pavilion, and like him, England played all their greatest hits. There was Crawley’s cover drive and Duckett’s late cut. Stokes, playing, for the second time in his life at No 3 because of Moeen Ali’s injury, hooked a six to deep backward square, where Josh Hazlewood dropped it over the rope.
“Harry Brook walloped one down the ground and into the sightscreen. Joe Root played his reverse scoop for six off Mitchell Marsh, and Jonny Bairstow bristled with anger and clumped cuts and thumped pulls.
“In 150 years of cricket, and 250 series, no team has ever scored at more than four runs an over against Australia, not Michael Vaughan’s England, who went at 3.87, not Graeme Smith’s South Africa, who went at 3.66, not Sourav Ganguly’s India, who went 3.09, or Arjuna Ranatunga’s Sri Lanka, Imran Khan’s Pakistan, Viv Richards’ West Indies, Ali Bacher’s South Africa, or any of the rest.
“Until this summer. Stokes’s England have rattled along at 4.74 against them, which is almost an entire run-per-over more than anyone else.”
In The Times, Simon Wilde described the Aussies as ‘punch-drunk’ in his withering takedown of Cummins and co.
“It is hard to remember an Australian team that has looked as passive as this one in the field,” he wrote.
“England may not have regained the Ashes but they have redefined their opponents as much as they have redefined themselves.
“Australian teams are renowned for ferocious competitiveness and intensity in the field; no one scores easy runs off them or is gifted easy wickets. But they increasingly resemble a punch-drunk boxer: not quite on the canvas but needing the support of the ropes.”
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