Broad sheds his Durban baggage

It was probably fitting that Stuart Broad should show his maturity as a bowler at Durban.

It was here, back in 2007, that Broad endured one of the more chastening moments of his career. Of anyone's career. Bowling at Yuvraj Singh in a World T20 match, Broad was hit for six sixes in an over.

He was a talented young man. But when he came up against a destructive batsman who, for a little while anyway, hit the ball as well as anyone in the world, he lacked the sophistication required to find an answer. It was a painful, embarrassing moment. And it cost England the game.

Watch that over again now and it becomes clear how much Broad has progressed. In that over, every ball was between 78 and 80 mph. While he attempted one ball from round the wicket, he lacked the control to make such a change effective and the resultant full toss was probably the worst delivery of the over. He immediately returned to bowling over the wicket. Just about every ball was full, straight and bowled with the same wrist, hand and seam position.

Broad has a great many more tricks at his disposal now. And, if the miles on the clock have robbed him of a little of the pace he might once have had - he briefly reached 90mph here but settled for an average of 83.2mph, the slowest of England's four seamers - he has more than compensated.

Perhaps the finest moment of his performance on the second day of the Durban Test came with the wicket of AB de Villiers. With no bowler on either side gaining any meaningful conventional swing and the pitch having dried to reduce the seam movement available on the previous day, Broad required a new tactic.

So, just as he did against Marlon Samuels on a dead track in Antigua earlier this year, Broad bowled a legcutter. It pitched, gripped, bounced and took the edge. De Villiers was out.

There were other signs of improvement. With just the second ball of the innings, Broad showed his ability to come round the wicket by bowling Stiaan van Zyl. Yes, the batsman left it. But it is Broad's ability to move the ball away from the left-hander at decent pace that plants such confusion in a batsman's mind.

After play, Broad credited the input of Ottis Gibson, England's bowling coach, for his development and suggested that, aged 29, he may now be at his peak as a bowler.

"I definitely feel I've improved," Broad said. "The biggest thing that has helped my game is my improvement to left-handed batsmen. Bowling round the wicket is quite a new thing to me. I spent a lot of time bowling over the wicket to left-handers and not having great control of the ball moving across or swinging back in so it gives left-handers a little clip to get off strike.

"So I feel from round the wicket, with all my bodyweight going towards off stump, if it does move away, it might catch the outside edge but if it goes straight, it can bring in off stump.

"So that's been a big development in my game and I have to think Ottis Gibson for noticing that and for pushing me to keep improving. Ottis has sorted out the line of my run-up.

"Bowlers I've always grown up with say you're at your peak between 28 and 32. I hope that's the case. I feel I'm more experienced and I know my game a bit more."

Broad also praised Alastair Cook's tactics for the wicket of de Villiers. England had reasoned that, with conditions having eased, it was going to prove tough to beat de Villiers' defence. So they encouraged him to play his strokes, while ensuring enough protection to prevent him scoring too quickly.

"AB was taking the game away from us," Broad said. "He has the ability to hit good balls for four and score quickly.

"So we came up with a plan: a 7-2 field to say you can hit your good shots, but we want you to hit your good shots to fielders and try to frustrate him a little bit. And then the legcutter gripped a little more than I thought it would and caught the edge.

"Encouraging him to play his shots is the way to get him out. His defence is so solid, it's hard to get him to make a mistake unless he plays some shots."

But Broad admitted that England had made several errors that could yet prove crucial. Not only was Hashim Amla dropped by Jonny Bairstow, but England failed to utilise their reviews on two occasions when, had they done so, they may well have claimed more wickets - most pertinently when a delivery from Ben Stokes struck Dean Elgar, then on 58, on the pad. They also saw de Villiers survive a replay of a catch to Stokes in the gully, which the third umpire felt was inconclusive.

"We got back in the changing room and all our management were like 'that's 100% out,'" Broad said. "But I'm sure the South African changing room would have thought it was not out. That's how sport works. Sometimes your views are a little bit slanted.

"The review is our fault, really. We thought Elgar hit the ball which is why we didn't call for the review. People make mistakes.

"We also missed Amla early doors, so we have left a couple of wickets out there. It's something we're trying to work on as a team: not taking 25 wickets a test; taking all our chances.

"But, from a bowling point of view, the encouraging thing is that we creating those sort of chances. If we continue to do that, we'll put ourselves in a good position.

"I don't think anyone knows how this wicket is going to behave. It's quite a lot drier than I thought it would be. We don't know if it will keep deteriorating. If it does, a first-innings lead could be important."

Broad will never completely live down the memory of that night in Durban and the Yuvraj mauling. But as he reflects on 2015, he can take great satisfaction at how his career has progressed since: from talented youngster, he has matured into a highly skilled Test match bowler.