Shane Warne is right about Broad

Shane Warne has a habit of saying things in the press that English cricket does not want to hear and that come back to bite us.  Remember what he said about Ravi Bopara before the Ashes?  Five months after becoming England’s latest pre-ordained Ashes hero, RavBop didn’t even make it into the Performance Programme.

So when Warne writes in his Times column that England will ruin Stuart Broad, now a bona-fide Ashes hero, we should start to worry.  A lot.

If England want to ruin Stuart Broad, it strikes me that they may be going the right way about it. Somebody tell me that he won’t bat at No 7 for the Test series in South Africa…..He is a decent bowler and a reasonable batsman — just not an international all-rounder. By thinking that he is, England risk taking his focus away from what he is learning to do well: first and foremost to support frontline bowlers, then to chip in with runs. [Source]

Warne has a point.  We have argued on this blog before that England should switch to six batsmen now that Flintoff has retired, ostensibly to strengthen their flimsy batting.  Broad has talent, and may eventually move up the order, but it is too soon.  There is a huge difference between biffing a few runs at number 8, in the manner of Warne himself, and batting in a position that has been re-defined by Adam Gilchrist and the like into a proper top order position.  As Warne points out:

England should look at Shaun Pollock and Wasim Akram from the recent past. They had the potential to bat at No 7, but spent a lot of their careers at 8 because they recognised bowling as their more important skill. I would put Mitchell Johnson in that category — he can really hit a clean ball — and Broad as well.

Well said.  Add to this the strength of the South African bowling, and I can see a hard winter ahead for England.  For some reason, pretty much since someone decided that Alec Stewart should do Jack Russell’s job as well as his own, 5 bowlers has been seen to be the law where selection is concerned, apparantly regardless of who is available.

The trouble with this approach is that your allrounder then has to become the pivot of the side – as Flintoff was able to from 2003-5.  Otherwise, they are not worth their place in the team, it being better to have a specialist in one area than a jack-of-all-trades.  This is why the inclusion in the squad of Luke Wright is attracting the sort of strange glances reserved for a two-headed elephant.  He’s in the squad as a backup to Broad, but clearly is not of the calibre required to fulfill anything more than a bits and pieces role.

Our usual reaction to Warne’s proclamations is to assume that he is playing some sort of dastardly Australian mind game.  Warne knows, as any Aussie does, that it’s easier just to be honest and let the poms tear themselves apart wondering.