Despite having nearly 600 Test wickets under his belt, Stuart Broad is still tinkering and experimenting with his fluent bowling action.
The 36-year-old, one of the most successful seam bowlers in Test history, has been fine-tuning his bowling ahead of this winter’s highly-anticipated Ashes campaign — and the changes are specifically designed to trouble Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne.
Broad has been developing his outswinger with Nottinghamshire bowling coach Kevin Shine in the County Championship, and the adjustments are already paying dividends.
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During last week’s victory over Somerset at Trent Bridge, Broad knocked over former Australian opener Cameron Bancroft with an absolute seed that crashed into the right-hander’s off stump.
The England veteran is seemingly unearthing more swing with the revamped load-up, as seen by his dismissal of Middlesex’s Luke Hollman in the first innings of last week’s County Championships contest at Lord’s.
The wobble seam delivery remains Broad’s reliable stock ball, but this revamped outswinger adds an extra weapon to his armoury ahead of the Ashes.
“I’ve been working on this load-up with Kevin Shine, our bowling coach, to create more flow in my bowling action, because sometimes my action can get a little bit jerky,” Broad told reporters in London over the weekend.
“Just lifting my bowling and higher creates a lot more motion and a lot more flow … (Shine’s) quite excited by what it’s doing.
“It was nice to see last week the ball I’ve been working on come to fruition with Bancroft.
“The ball swinging away from the right-hander is something this flow will create more of.”
Broad confessed his bowling action tweak was specifically designed for Smith and Labuschagne, who have averaged 118.67 and 119.00 against him at Test level since the start of 2017.
Labuschagne has never fallen victim to Broad in red-ball Test cricket, while the right-armed paceman only removed Smith twice in 2019 — once when he was on 144 and once caught at leg slip when the coveted urn had already been lost.
Broad claimed 23 wickets at 26.65 during his 2019 Ashes campaign, but only seven of his victims were right-handed. Australia’s left-handed batters, however, were utterly outclassed by Broad four years ago — he removed David Warner seven times in 2019, also knocking over Travis Head and Marcus Harris three times each.
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Despite past failures, Broad is encouraged by the ongoing development of his latest weapon, sending an early warning to Australia ahead of the five-Test showdown.
“It’s designed, to be honest, for Marnus and Smith,” Broad said of his outswinger.
“It’s the reason I wanted to change something, to try and bring their outside edge in more.
“My stock delivery will always be wobble seam trying to nip back on off stump, because I think that’s the most dangerous ball. But to those guys, I think dragging them across with away swing is quite important. So this action tweak is pretty much designed at those two, and it was good to see it really swinging away today.
“You always have to be looking for something to improve … I’m constantly working on things in training to see if something can work to implement in games.”
The first Ashes Test gets underway at Edgbaston on June 16.
