After 102 Tests, Broad prepares to start anew

It may be stretching a point but, as Stuart Broad describes "managing" his aches and pains and the hard work James Anderson has had to endure to recover from his latest injury, the final scene of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid floats to mind.

In that scene, Anderson and Broad - OK, it was Paul Newman and Robert Redford - are holed up in a stable and desperately patch themselves up with improvised splints and bandages in order to fight their way out. At the risk of spoiling the ending for anyone who hasn't seen it, it doesn't go especially well for them.

It's an exaggeration, of course. Broad and Anderson haven't been so badly injured - though the window between Anderson's injuries seems to be closing - and South Africa aren't the Bolivian army, though Hashim Amla averages 56.21 against England in Test cricket and remains plenty good enough to kill off another career or two before he is done.

It's more that Broad's conversation - his talk of the special boots, of strapping the fat pads on his feet and managing the condition for the rest of his career - provides a reminder of how many miles there are in these legs, of how long England have relied upon them and that, one day in the not too distant future, they're going to have to find another pair of bowlers to rely upon.

Anderson and Broad have been leading England's attack since March 2008; the best part of a decade. Anderson has bowled 5,000 more deliveries than any other England Test bowler. They've taken 835 Test wickets between them - Broad needs only 16 more to go past Ian Botham into second place on the list of England's Test wicket-takers - and played their part in England reaching No. 1 in the Test rankings, and memorable victories in India, Australia and South Africa. Their reputations are assured.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that they keep coming back for more. And all the more remarkable that Broad, now aged 31, retains the hunger and humility to continue to find ways in which he can improve.

In particular, of late, Broad has been trying to improve his form against right-handed batsmen. Having worked hard on bowling round the wicket to left-handers - his Test average against left-handers since June 2015 is 18.40 - he feels he had let his technique against right-handers slip a little and, as a consequence, lost a little of the shape and pace that has rendered him such a successful bowler. His average against right-handers in the same period is 25.69.

"I bowled a lot around the wicket to left-handers against Australia in 2015," Broad recalls now. "Then we went over to South Africa, who had two left-handers opening the batting, and I grooved a lot to left-handers.

"I saw some numbers came up that I maybe averaged 40 against left-handers and I had to get that down. Since I've gone round the wicket, I think it's at 15 or 16. But with bowling a lot round the wicket and trying to open my body up to get that shape on it, I hadn't drilled enough over the wicket for that not to happen a little bit.

"So I've been doing a bit of work on having the ability to be around the wicket, and then over the wicket. I'm never a massive away-swinger, that's not what I do, but I want to be able to stand the seam up straight and run it down the slope."

The issue was first spotted by fast bowling guru Steffan Jones while the pair were at Hobart Hurricanes. Jones, the former county seamer who has moved into coaching, noticed Broad was falling away in delivery when bowling over the wicket and recommended a quicker run-up which would result in Broad getting through his delivery stride faster and allowing him less opportunity to fall away. Broad responded by bowling with increased pace in the BBL and also started to regain just a little of the away movement that makes him so dangerous.

"The thing I took from Stef was the run up speed," Broad says. "I've worked with Andy Pick - the Nottinghamshire bowling coach - and Ottis Gibson - the England bowling coach - too. A lot of it is to do with this front arm keeping tight [close to the body] because if it drifts out too much then you've got to balance the left side. So if I keep that right arm in tight, then it comes over straighter and I can move it away. Look, you're not going to see me trying to do that like Jimmy. But I'll try to hit off stump and get a little bit of nibble either way.

"It's great. I've just turned 31 and I'm still finding things in my action to improve to make myself a better bowler, which is exciting. You don't ever want to fall into that trap of not having anything to work on."

If ever Broad thought that, it was a stance dispelled by the decision to drop him from England's white ball teams. While he retains aspirations of winning a return to England's ODI side for the 2019 World Cup, he knows he might be reliant on a series of injuries. Equally he knows that, with the likes of Mark Wood and Chris Woakes pressing, he needs to work hard to delay the day when he - like Matthew Hoggard and Steve Harmison before him - is replaced in the Test side by younger men.

Having not represented England for 198 days - his longest spell without international cricket since April 2007, when he was recalled after 223 days without a match - he says this return "feels like a debut."

"I'm going to keep pushing and training and trying to get myself better in white-ball cricket up until 2019 because anything can happen leading into a World Cup," Broad says. "The World Cup dream is still there. If someone goes down on the eve of the tournament you want to be in the best possible shape for someone to call on you. I'll just keep working and trying. We saw this summer there were a few niggles flying around.

"I've gone from being a prospect who gets an extra game because I might be good in the future, to a situation where I have to perform every game, which is good. I'm the sort of person who seems to thrive on that added pressure and I tend to raise my game a bit when there's a bit more on the game.

"I think some pressure from younger bowlers will do me the world of good. I've been in a period in the last three or four years to need to perform to stay in the team and warrant staying in the team but I've been bowling probably the best of my career over the last four years and with some tweaks I've made in county cricket hopefully I can really push on."

And the pace? Can he still crank it up above 85mph? It's been a feature of many of his best spells - the match-winning efforts in Durham and The Oval and Joburg and Trent Bridge - that he had been able to find that extra pace that gets the ball moving later and bouncing higher.

"I'm sort of past the stage of trying to look at the speedometer," he says. "I know that I have an optimum speed that's about 84-85mph where I get my extra bounce and if I really have to ramp it up I can go higher than that, for a spell of bouncers or something. But I know that about 83-85mph with movement is where I need to be.

"I want to keep going for a while. I don't think I've had a gap like this playing for England and it reminds you how special it is and how lucky you are to be a part of it. When you're not part of the one-day team, like I'm not at the moment, you do miss it so when you get the opportunity to play it feels like a debut if that makes sense. I'm lucky enough to have played over a hundred Tests but this feels like a debut."

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