‘This guy’s on fire!’: Stuart Broad’s demolition jobs, as told by his victims

T he ancient Greeks believed that the gods Deimos and Phobos stalked the battlefield. These sons of Ares spread panic amongst the ranks. Fear was infectious. All it took was one afflicted soldier to turn and run before entire armies were routed.

The stakes are much lower during a batting collapse but the same invisible force can descend on those yet to take guard in the middle. Like a herd of spooked wildebeest a dressing room can become gripped by terror as the wickets column ticks over, especially when an apex predator like Stuart Broad is charging towards the crease with wicked intent.

“He’s a phenomenal operator,” says Dane Vilas, the South Africa and Lancashire wicketkeeper who played in a game when Broad had one of those spells. You know the ones I mean. When every ball feels like an event. Where everyone else becomes a side character in the Stuart Broad Show. His languid arms, now morphed into trebuchets, deliver a string of unplayable jaffas. It’s all extra bounce and sharp seam and hooping swing and no-look celebrappeals.

“He has a knack of doing it,” continues Vilas, who watched on as Broad claimed 6-17 at the Wanderers in January 2012, including five scalps in an eight-over burst to leave South Africa’s second innings in tatters. When Temba Bavuma was bowled for a duck, Vilas was the next man in at 35-5.

“It’s easy to freeze up in those moments,” he says. “You’re watching this unfold and you’re thinking, ‘Wow, this guy’s on fire!’ But you want to take the challenge on. You want to be the guy who saves the day for your country. That’s difficult when you’ve got a bowler producing like that.”

Vilas survived Broad’s spell but fell soon after for eight when he was spectacularly caught by James Taylor at short leg