England pace bowler Stuart Broad has opened up about his injury, saying his injury “won’t be the last” in the ongoing Test series because all other bowlers are currently in the “red zone.” Broad, who has been ruled out after the first Test with a calf tear, shared that the tight white-ball schedule has made it tough for them to manage the extra workload of the longer format as well.
However, Stuart Broad had sustained the injury during a warm-up session before the second Test at Lord’s. They had just a few days of practice in between The Hundred and T20 Blast as well. Broad wrote in his column for the Daily Mail on Sunday: “Sadly, I won’t be the last England injury of this series — not with the GPS ‘red zones’ as they are for players right now. The difficulty with the 2021 schedule being so white-ball dominant is that bowlers have just not built up overs in the bank. Say Saqib Mahmood had been drafted in for this Test. He hasn’t played a red-ball game for 10 weeks and it’s very difficult to play a four or five-day match without some kind of workload behind you. It’s why bowlers do not come back from injury and play straight away.”
READ HERE: Suryakumar Yadav refers to Prithvi Shaw as a showstopper
He further shared: “This summer, as there wasn’t even any second XI Championship cricket in the weeks before this series started, that hasn’t been possible, and so every single one of our bowlers was in that red zone when the first ball was sent down at Trent Bridge. Sam Curran went from bowling five balls at a time to being asked for 20-25 overs in a day, and it makes life difficult for the likes of Chris Woakes, trying to get back into the team.”
Stuart Broad also opened up on his partner James Anderson’s sublime form in the series. He said that the veteran’s form will be crucial for England if they want to win against India.
READ HERE: Washington Sundar all set to miss second phase of IPL 2021
“For us to keep in this series, Jimmy will have to have stay in this kind of form and lead an inexperienced attack. Whether he will play all five matches, I don’t know but there is a bit of a break after this match for him to rest up. His relentlessness and desire to keep playing is quite inspiring and highlights how English cricket’s mindset has changed from the era of Freddie Flintoff, Matthew Hoggard and Steve Harmison,” Stuart Broad concluded.
