Stuart Broad: ‘Being dropped by England arguably saved my career’

T welve months on from being dropped for a tour of the Caribbean – and back in the country where his record-breaking alliance with Jimmy Anderson began – Stuart Broad is almost grateful his England career nearly came to an abrupt end.

Not that he was happy about it at the time. When Andrew Strauss stepped in as temporary team director after the Ashes meltdown in Australia and tried to shore up Joe Root’s listing captaincy by omitting the big two, Broad didn’t hold back. He claimed to be “blindsided” by the call and “waking up more confused and angrier with each passing day”.

But at the start of his 17th year as an England player, back after the paternity leave that meant he missed December’s triumph in Pakistan and set for an instant return in Thursday’s first Test against New Zealand, Broad is happy to bury the hatchet he felt Strauss wielded unnecessarily.

“Arguably that decision saved my career,” says Broad, who looked on from home as England’s seam attack laboured en route to a 1-0 defeat by West Indies that proved the catalyst for regime change. “If I had gone there, on those pitches, I’m not sure I’d be here now. I don’t think it was designed like that by the selectors, but I count myself as pretty lucky.”

Broad being Broad, there was an amusing contradiction: had he been on that tour, and in Pakistan before Christmas, he fancies he would have finished the leading Test wicket-taker in the world in 2022. Instead, after his summer recall, he finished with 40 victims at 25 runs apiece, fourth behind Nathan Lyon, Kagiso Rabada (both 47) and Jack Leach (46).

Either way, the 36-year-old is certainly enjoying the captaincy of Ben Stokes and England’s magnetic head coach, Brendon McCullum. “It has been the most enjoyable