‘Confused and angry’ Stuart Broad breaks silence on England snub for West Indies tour

England hero Stuart Broad says the decision to leave him out of the West Indies tour has left him ‘confused and angrier with each passing day’.

Broad and long-time opening partner James Anderson have both been omitted from England’s squad for next month’s three-match Test series in the Caribbean.

The 35-year-old, England’s second-highest wicket-taker with 537 from 152 Tests, took 13 wickets in three matches during the recent 4-0 Ashes defeat in Australia.

‘I am waking up more confused and angrier with each passing day. I feel gutted,’ Broad said in a column for the Daily Mail.

‘Do I need to prove myself again? In my mind, I’ve nothing to prove. I am a proven performer, so it is now about the English cricketing summer and mentally and physically targeting the home series against New Zealand in June.’

Only one England bowler – Mark Wood – took more wickets than Broad during the Ashes defeat.

Broad says the West Indies omission hurts as his ‘standards have not dropped’ and reveals he was told the news in a five-minute phone call with interim England director of cricket Sir Andrew Strauss.

He added: ‘I have to confess that I wasn’t expecting the phone call I received from Andrew Strauss on Tuesday that started with him saying: “I’ve got some bad news.”

‘That’s not what you really want to hear on selection matters, and not something I have heard very often during my career of 152 Test caps.

‘I always try to find a positive in the hand that has been dealt to me. To be honest, though, that’s been quite tricky this time because the decision to leave me out of the tour of West Indies has hit me pretty hard.’

Only five bowlers in history have taken more wickets than Broad and Strauss insists the door is not closed for the Nottinghamshire