Australia’s destructive opening batsman David Warner had a nightmare Ashes 2019 and was batting bunny of his Ashes nemesis England's veteran speedster Stuart Broad who got the better of the Aussie 7 out of 10 times in the five-Test series last summer in England.
Broad had analyzed Warner's Test methods extensively before the Ashes series, especially During the 2019 World Cup, and decided to bowl full and in line with the stumps to the left-hander – who is strongly playing the cut shot and the English pacer got the trick.
The lanky England pacer managed to dismiss the Australian batsman 7 times in the span of 104 balls during the series at home and the latter said he “got lucky” against Warner – who had scored just 95 runs in 10 Test innings while the pacer finished with 23 wickets in the Ashes series last year.
However, speaking to The Analyst's Virtual Cricket Club - an initiative set-up by Simon Hughes to support the Professional Cricketers' Trust, the 34-year speedster has insisted that the timing of the Ashes 2019 and English condition created a perfect platform to succeed in the series and against Warner.
Broad said: “I got lucky, in the sense that it was a really good summer to bowl with a brand-new ball in England. It had that dryness of pitches - probably due to the World Cup - that just nipped off the seam. I was fresh, I was buzzing, I was excited because it was my first international cricket of the summer - for guys who had played in the World Cup, it was maybe a different story.”
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The veteran pacer further revealed, “I had a lot of time to do research while the World Cup was going on. I have always found [Warner] a very difficult batsman to bowl at, particularly in the third innings when you are tired: he is very good at punishing shorter bowling and width.”
He continued, “I did a lot of research on how he gets out and said: ‘I’m going to try and hit his stumps all the time and make him play every ball. If he hits me for four down the ground, I’m winning; if he cuts me through point, I’m losing. I had all my energy focused on hitting the stumps, and by the time I got him twice, he was then unsure whether to play me or leave me, because balls were nipping back at the stumps.”
Broad signed off by saying, “We had a bit of a chat after I’d got him out in the first innings at Lord’s. I’d got him out three times – lbw, caught behind, bowled – and we were just walking out of the pavilion at the same time. He asked me: ‘how did you nip it back up the slope? Was it deliberate?’ I knew I had a bit of an advantage there, when he was asking if I’d deliberately nipped it back. I’m looking to hit the stumps, but I don’t know which way it’s nipping.”
(With ESPNCricinfo Inputs)
