Stuart Broad hoping for swing at Lords

England have two high-quality fast bowlers in the form of James Anderson and Stuart Broad. James Anderson is generally a good swinger of the new ball. He has struck early for England and had grabbed important wickets for England. Stuart Broad’s role is also the same – to get wickets with the new ball. He could get lateral movement off the surface as well. He also had an outstanding home series against West Indies last year. He struck early for England and claimed wickets regularly against the West Indies. Therefore, Stuart Broad and Anderson could be a major threat to the Black Caps.

Stuart Broad was the best bowler for England in New Zealand, as he claimed 11 wickets. He was able to make use of the pitch effectively, which was on the slower side. But he admitted that his bowlers weren’t able to swing the ball. “Regardless of what New Zealand did, as a bowling unit we didn’t swing the ball,” Broad said. “So that is something that needs to be looked at and we have looked at. But it’s not something we’re too concerned about because we need to focus on this series and we’re arriving at Lord’s, which when it’s cloudy it does swing around and we have got the best swing bowler in the world in Jimmy.

“We know we can bowl a lot better than in New Zealand. Regardless of whether you’re moving the ball, you can still put six balls in the right area and we probably didn’t do that as a unit consistently. That’s something we want to put into place this summer and that starts here on Thursday. It’s about the discipline of the bowling unit and building pressure together.

“We’ve all got good experience bowling here at Lord’s and I think we’ve got a good record as a team here. It’s something we have looked at, the reasons why – we don’t want to panic too much but we didn’t move the ball as much as we wanted to on what were slow, placid wickets. If it doesn’t swing for us and we don’t move it off the street this week we might be having a few panic meetings.”

Recently, England were also warned of repeated failings in Test matches. It’s because England bowlers were not able to get the swing and consequently; they were taken for runs without difficulty. Stuart Broad was the only bowler to get the swing in New Zealand, but he did not receive support from the other bowlers.

But Stuart Broad mentioned that they won’t be taking New Zealand lightly as they are playing at home. He was aware of New Zealand’s pace-attack. “As a team we certainly won’t underestimate anything they can do,” Broad said. “We know they’re fighters, we know they’re a tough team and we know that we have to be very disciplined to compete with them and to beat them. This week we’ve had a lot of meetings about our focus as a team, how we want to play our cricket. You’ll see a really focused team coming out on Thursday, determined to put on some good performances, to throw the first punch, to make sure the first three days are our days, the first hour is our hour, not relaxing into Test matches and chasing the game.”