Book Review - Broadly Speaking

 

Broadly Speaking.

Stuart Broad (with Richard Gibson). Hodder & Stoughton. Hardback. £12.50. 336 pages

Stuart Broad’s autobiography hit the bookshelves within 100 days of his dramatic retirement where in typical Broad fashion the Notts man signed off in style by dismissing the last two Aussie batters to ensure England drew the series 2-2. Broad ended up England’s leading wicket-taker in the series. Broad looks at his career candidly throughout the 336 pages of an interesting and reasonably priced book.

He starts the book by calling Trent Bridge his home having played on the outfield from a toddler, his one-time playing companion being Phillip Robinson, son of Tim. Born nine weeks premature with a birthweight of 2lb 2oz, Broad spent his first two months of his life in an incubator. However as he reveals despite his early struggles, he underwent a DEXA scan during his career which revealed that his bone density was in top one per cent of human beings. Unlike most fast bowlers, he never had a stress fracture of the back. His training regime was very structured placing the most important ingredient of fast bowling, running at its core.

His parents split up when he was three and he was essentially brought up by his mother in the Rutland village of Whissendine. Broad’s first love was always cricket but his mother always ensured his sporting life was varied with Broad playing rugby and hockey. Because Broad was left-handed the only natural position for Broad in hockey was as a goalkeeper. His mother Carole placed “having fun” as the most important criteria of Broad’s early sporting activities. His early cricket was played at Oakham School, under the tutelage of Frank Hayes and David Steele, and for Egerton Park CC. Although Broad both batted and bowled when young, he was very much considered a batter in the Leicestershire age group set up. Being small for his age he missed out on selection for the Leicestershire Under-16s. When suddenly he had a massive growth spurt, his big breakthrough came,  scoring a 100 for the Foxes Under-17s at Denby in 2003, his first-ever 100 at any level; more tons followed that summer. He was immediately taken on the Leicestershire Academy and at the end of 2004 he was offered his first professional contract of £5,000 at Grace Road, having played three Second XI championship matches that summer.

During the winter of 2004-05, Broad spent his winter playing for Hoppers Crossing CC in Melbourne and his continuing increase in height meant he was now a menace with the ball and he came back a different player. Broad’s progress was rapid with him making his Leicestershire championship debut versus Somerset at Oakham School in June 2005. His early bowling mentor was Ottis Gibson, a team mate in his first game who subsequently became England’s bowling coach. He particularly impressed when Leicestershire won the T20 title with a 4-run victory against Notts in 2006. Broad confirming that James Allenby’s final delivery of the match to Will Smith was a no ball, a decision which the umpires did not have the bottle to call after Foxes skipper Paul Nixon immediately ripped out the stumps in celebration. Broad made his England debut in a T20 match later that summer at Bristol. His observations of that well-known marmite character Duncan Fletcher, the then England coach, are illuminating “England coach he might have been, but I honestly don’t think he knew my name. He gave me absolutely nothing, I can’t remember him speaking to me in the games I played, even in the World Cup the following year’. We are still awaiting Chris Read’s autobiography for him to share his views on the same subject!

Broad wanted to further his career by moving to a Test match ground. In 2008, Broad signed for Notts, he preferred Trent Bridge despite being offered considerably less money than either Lancashire or Warwickshire who were also chasing his contract. He started on the same day as Alex Hales and Luke Fletcher. Broad jokily told Mick Newell that it was “the best transfer window he ever had”. Once he completed his first season with Notts, Broad became centrally contracted so he was only actually on the Trent Bridge wage bill for that single season.

His love of Notts can be seen throughout the book, his very last white ball game was the Royal London final against Surrey in 2017, when Alex Hales smashed the Brown Cap bowlers all over Lord’s. He had become a specialist red ball cricketer at the age of 31 which undoubtedly prolonged the length of his playing career. Broad states that the bare minimum of any team he played for was that they “had to compete, and I never wanted a county team to come to Trent Bridge and think Nottinghamshire were an easy team to play against. We had occasions particularly during the 2019 season when we became that team. It was really frustrating, not least because I couldn’t put my finger on why.” Regarding Notts’ current and England’s former coach Broad says that Peter Moores was “one of the best coaches I worked with. He had a great ability to improve a cricketer. There were so many occasions when he helped me.”

Broad contemplated retirement twice before quitting last July; after being dropped for the first test of the Covid series against the West Indies in 2020 and then missing out on the selection for the West Indies tour in March 2022. His dropping from the tour of the Caribbean instigated by interim supremo Andrew Strauss particularly affected him and he had long chats with Notts Psychologist Chris Marshall amongst others to help him cope with the situation. It was the appointment of Rob Key and then the subsequent introduction of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum which refreshed Broad’s enthusiasm for cricket. He describes McCullum “more of a Sports Psychologist than a cricket coach.”

He wanted to go out on top very much like Chris Read (at Notts) and Alastair Cook (with England) did and with his first child born the previous November he thought long and hard before eventually announcing his retirement on day 3 of the last Test at the Oval last year.

Inside the book, most of the catalogue of important events of Broad’s international career get an airing. Understandingly most of the text covers his England days and there is a disproportionate amount of text devoted to the 2023 Ashes Tests. The injury to the face he received from Varun Aaron in 2014, had a lasting effect on his batting, Broad never recovering from the blow. If you buy the book, you will find out what the current Forest club skipper Joe Worrall was doing following the conclusion of the Leeds test and why Broad was dressed in full Forest regalia when he first formally met Baz McCullum prior to the 2022 Test summer. MAG