Ace England pacer –Stuart Broad on Monday admitted that he had a poor 2017-18 Ashes series, where he bagged just 11 wickets, but now he is confident of doing well in the New Zealand Test series, starting from 22 March in Auckland. He is also ready to take the new ball in New Zealand.

Broad, who will enter the first Test at Eden Park with 399 Test wickets, has reworked his bowling action, as well as, had a lot of practice with the new ball fixing  the issues which he thinks were damaging him as a bowler at home when England was playing One Day series against the Black Caps.  

According to a report in the Daily Mail, Stuart Broad said, “I’m really not sure which way we’ll go [in the first Test] ... we’re going to be slightly less rigid in the way we go about things, just to try to create pressure for longer periods of time. There has been no decision made on it. There’s still a chance I could take the new ball.”

The fast bowler further added, “I think my action had fallen into a place where it needed repairing, after bowling so much to left-handers round the wicket — in training and in matches. I’m in a place now where I feel like I can do quite a bit of damage as a bowler again. This period in February was great for me. I loved it, taking it back to the basics, getting away from all the technical side of cricket and just going back to what you did as a kid — trying things, playing with things.”

Following poor outing in Australia, calling it a tough Ashes tour,  Broad has now rediscovered his hunger as a bowler. He added, “You’re just trying to get a feeling back for what cricket is. I’m a ‘feeling’ cricketer, and I’ve got a great hunger to play. I’ve had a tough Ashes tour; I’ve got a lot of hunger to get in this England team, stay in it and have a lot of success.

That certainly includes the next Ashes series ... at 31, touch wood; I’ve got quite a bit of cricket left in me. I think that was maybe a by-product of my action not being in the best place. It was a tough tour. I didn’t feel like I got much out of those pitches at all, but that can happen when you’re lacking slight confidence in your action.”

Broad signed off by saying, “It’s not necessarily just about taking the individual wickets. It’s more the length of time it takes, the dedication ... that you’ve got to put in to be on the cricket field for that long to have the chance of taking 400 wickets.”