David Warner Was Surprised To See Stuart Broad’s Exclusion In Southampton Test

Australian opener David Warner was surprised to see the removal of the senior English pacer Stuart Broad in the recent Southampton Test.

Since the last year, Stuart Broad is playing a very crucial role in England pace bowling line-up in Test cricket. In the Ashes 2019 in England and South Africa tour in 2019/20, Broad was England’s most wicket-taker at the end of those Test series.

However, at the very beginning of the ongoing delayed home season, Broad missed out the first Test match against West Indies at Southampton where the visitors won by four wickets. It was very frustrating for him to miss out that Test as he appeared in the previous 51 consecutive home Tests since 2012.

But Broad featured in the next two Tests of this three-match Test series while both those Tests were played at Manchester. In the second Test, Broad bagged a total of six wickets (3/66 & 3/42) while England won by 113 runs to level the Test series. Later, Broad was the hero in the recently concluded third or final Test of this series where he not only managed to pick up a total of ten wickets (6/31 & 4/36) in that series-winning victory by 269 runs, but he also scored the crucial game-changing knock of 62 runs off 45 balls (9 fours and one six) during England’s first innings.

Broad won the Player of the Match award in the last Test while he was also the Player of the Series award winner (along with West Indies cricketer Roston Chase) at the end of that Test series.

While David Warner still doesn’t know the reason for Broad’s exclusion from the Southampton Test, he also feels that Broad shouldn’t be dropped again from the present English Test squad.

Warner said according to ESPNcricinfo, “I think they should not drop him again, I don’t know why they dropped him for that first game. It’d be nice if I was to play over there again and he wasn’t playing.”

While Broad performed a fearless batting when England were struggling during the first innings of the series decider, the English cricketer credited the former Australian cricketer Shane Warne for that powerful batting performance. Warner felt weird on that but praised Broad’s bowling performances in the recent times.

Warner continued, “I saw he got a 50 and he’s taking some batting tips off Shane Warne, which is weird, but the way he bowls, the way he’s been bowling the last 18 months has been outstanding. I don’t know what was the reasoning behind leaving him out of that first Test, but obviously he’s come back and taken a few wickets.”

I think Stuart Broad is a world-class bowler: David Warner

In the recently concluded series-decider Test match, Stuart Broad became the second English bowler and seventh overall bowler to claim 500 Test wickets. Warner called him as a world-class bowler.

Warner claimed, “Personally, I think he’s a world-class bowler and the last 18 months he’s really worked hard on pitching the ball up. When I look back on the stats it is probably the first time in his career, he’s actually pitched the ball up in that sort of five to six metres area the bowlers talk about quite a lot. He’s got a hell of a record against left-handers as well, and I think the capability of him bringing the ball back off the wicket into the left-handers has been another string to his bow.”

In the Ashes 2019, while David Warner struggled in that entire series and only managed to score 95 runs in that series (average 9.50), Broad dismissed him seven out of ten times in that series.