Stuart Broad celebrated his 34th birthday in June, as England went about their preparation in the quarantine bubble for their return to cricket, after being mired in the marsh of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He got his birthday gift in the form of his 500th Test wicket just over a month later. After claiming the wicket of Kraigg Brathwaite in the third Test versus the West Indies, Broad became the seventh bowler in cricket history to scalp 500 or more Test wickets.
He is only the fourth pace bowler to reach the milestone and the second Englishman after James Anderson. Muttiah Muralitharan tops the list with 800 wickets, followed by Shane Warne and Anil Kumble. The pace quartet of James Anderson, Glenn McGrath, Courtney Walsh, and Stuart Broad make up the top seven.
Remember Broad was not considered by England for the first Test, which the hosts lost to the West Indies at Southampton. But he has made a tremendous impact in the second and third Tests to get England to the brink of a series win.
With 37-year-old Anderson rested for the second Test, Broad got a look-in and claimed 6 wickets, making himself the obvious selection for the third Test. With Anderson also returning for the decider, England resorted to the tried and tested combination of the duo that has claimed over 1,000 Test wickets for them, mostly while bowling in tandem over the last 14 years.
Son of Chris Broad a former England left-handed opener and now an ICC match referee, Stuart Broad has seen the highs and lows that the game has to offer.
Stuart faced the ignominy of being hit for 6 sixes in an over by Yuvraj Singh in the ICC World T20 in 2007. But he put that disappointment behind him and over the years rose in the ranks of the England team, and went on to captain the side in the ODI and T20 formats.
In fact over the years, he has shown a great deal of maturity in the way he plays the longest format of the game. Broad made his Test debut in 2007 versus Sri Lanka and at the start of his career, held out a lot of promise as a lower-order batsman as well.
His career batting stats bear out that fact. He has scored a hundred and 12 half-centuries and had accumulated over 3200 runs in Test match cricket. The Test century was against Pakistan in 2010 at Lords, where he was involved in a record-breaking 8th wicket partnership of 332 runs with Jonathan Trott.
But he suffered a fractured nose and injured eye after being hit in the face by a bouncer from Varun Aaron, on the third day of the fourth Test at Old Trafford in August 2014. The ball squeezed between his helmet grille and visor, as he attempted a pull and it struck him on the nose. His batting has never been the same again. It is well documented that Broad admitted to having nightmares about it, and worked with a psychologist to get over that incident which affected his game.
But if Broad the batsman lost his mojo, the bowler in him flourished. Limited to turning out for England in just the longest format of the game since 2016, Broad has shown an immense amount of control, accuracy, and variety in his bowling in Tests.
As his performance in the current series suggests, if form and fitness are on your side, then age is just a number.
The author is a sports broadcaster and cricket commentator who has worked on assignments for leading sports networks in India and abroad.
