Broad Fitness Questions Raised

Stuart Broad bowled well during India’s first innings in the Nottingham test match, but, there was no sprint in his stride. He was not running in as fast as he normally does. He was looking a bit tired and exhausted which resulted in people raising questions over his fitness.

Broad had some fitness issues towards the end of the last season as well and because of that he had been kept out of the limited-over matches at the start of this season.

Thereafter, he was included in the England squad for the test series against Sri Lanka and he looked alright in that series.

But, on a flat Nottingham pitch against India, he seemed to be just ambling in. He is capable of bowling close to 145 kilometres per hour, but, he was bowling with the speed of just about 130.

He got a couple of wickets though and one out of those wickets was immensely valuable as it was of Virat Kohli. Broad got him outfoxed with a fabulous delivery which just came in a little bit after pitching.

Broad is not a workhorse sort of a bowler. He is an attacking bowler who can devastate the opposition batting line ups. He has done that in the past. England is expecting him to make a big impact in the ongoing test series, but, he will have to increase his intensity if he has to do that.

He is not going to get a five-for or six-for just by ambling in and bowling line and length.

When India had toured England in 2010, Broad was in peak form and he had given headaches to every Indian batsman except Rahul Dravid in that series. He had got more than 20 wickets to help England pull off a whitewash.