Stuart Broad 'still living for' the Ashes, even if he misses Sri Lanka tour

Stuart Broad insists he is "perfectly fine" with missing out on selection for the Test squad to tour Sri Lanka but "is still living" for the chance to play one more Ashes series.

While England's spinners claimed 49 wickets in the three-match series that took place in Sri Lanka at the end of 2018, England's seamers claimed just seven wickets between them.

So Broad is realistic about the anticipated role for seamers in the two-Test series which begins in mid-March and says he would be "very happy" not to be involved if that gave England "the best chance of winning".

"The pitches last time made it a waste of time bowling seam," Broad said. "I think 85 percent of wickets fell to spin. You're definitely going to take three or four spinners in that tour party, so I don't know if I'm going to be in it.

"I do understand that varying the selection will help us in the long term. Winning in Sri Lanka last time we changed the mindset and it worked beautifully. The tough thing going this time is it could be different: you could pick four spinners, turn up and it nips all over the place.

"If my next Test match is in June I'm perfectly fine with that because we're about getting to the Test Championship final and you play your teams to suit the conditions. If the conditions in Sri Lanka don't suit seam bowling I'm very happy not to be in the squad because you want to give England the best chance of winning the game. Not happy. But I'd accept it.

"Jack Leach missed out in Hamilton because spin's record there is appalling. Seam's record can't be that pretty in Colombo, so if I miss out I miss out."

But after an excellent year which has seen Broad claim 50 wickets at an average of 23.98 since the start of 2019, he is adamant there is a lot of international cricket left in him. And that, he hopes, includes the Ashes series that starts in November 2021.

"Would I like to be part of another Ashes series in Australia? Absolutely," he says. "I'm not someone who looks that far ahead. But I feel confident at the minute. I feel great. I feel physically good. All my fitness tests have gone in the right way which at 33 can be something that can fall away. I feel in a really good place.

"I know I can still deliver when the heat is on and the pressure is burning. That excitement of bowling the first ball in Ashes series, I'm still living for that. I've still got a lot of fire in the belly and as soon as that fire goes I know my bowling boots will go. It's still there."

Broad's confidence can only have been boosted by a return to Johannesburg. He claimed 6-17 the last time England played here, four years ago, which included a spell of 5-1 in 36 balls. It was a spell which sealed the series for England and took Broad to the No. 1 spot in the Test bowling rankings.

"It's a brilliant place to play and a brilliant place to bowl as a tall bowler," Broad says. "You get natural bounce. So I'm looking forward to this week.

"I've just watched the 2016 spell back on social media this morning. It was probably less impressive than it felt. It wasn't as if I was swinging it round corners and bowling jaffas. I suppose I made the batsmen play, but looking back this morning it wasn't a particularly impressive spell of bowling.

"It was the bounce that made it effective. In the bowlers' meeting today I'm going to talk about width being your enemy here. It's about making the batsmen play with a straight bat. You don't want to be getting cut too often because it means you're bowling too short.

"It's a bit like Perth: bowlers can bowl back of a length, the keeper takes it head height and it looks great but it's actually not very effective. You want to bring batsmen forward here. Not necessarily bring the stumps into play, because of the bounce, but bring batsmen forward and get them edging off the front foot and not getting cut. It's a good place to bowl but if you get it wrong you can disappear."