Broad kept his asthma secret for a long time.
England pacer Stuart Broad experienced difficulty in breathing during the opening day of the second Test against Pakistan. He looked in discomfort and had to call for an inhaler while bowling his fourth over.
Broad had revealed that he suffers from asthma during the 2015 Ashes. The Englishman has one and a half lungs because he was born three months premature. The 34-year-old had kept it secret with everyone until England’s pre-Ashes training camp in 2015.
“One night we were asked to provide a piece of information about ourselves that no one else knew, with the notion of being open with each other,” Broad wrote in the Daily Mail. “I shocked the boys a little when I told them I only had one and a half lungs because I was born three months premature."
“I explained that because I was so tiny when I was born, basically at death’s door, one of my lungs never fully developed. That’s why I’m asthmatic and carry an inhaler. It has never affected me as a sportsman, but the idea that I’ve played my entire career with half a lung less than everybody else is quite amazing when you think about it.”
Broad hasn't let asthma affect his cricket much and his record speaks for it. In 141 Test matches, he picked up 507 wickets with an average of 27.79 and a strike rate of 56.4.