“Where are they getting 20 wickets?” - Stuart Broad opens up on inexperienced England bowling line-up

Former England seamer Stuart Broad has questioned the England team management on how the inexperienced English bowling line-up will manage to get 20 Indian wickets in any given Test of the five-match Test series, starting on June 20 at Headingley, Leeds.

Moving into the details, England has been marred by fitness issues. While Jofra Archer last played a Test four years ago and is set to miss the first Test due to a thumb injury, Mark Wood is set to miss the game due to a knee injury. 

“[Jasprit] Bumrah is the best in the world, but he won’t play all five Tests, and looking at England with the injuries they’ve got at the moment — where are they getting 20 wickets?” Broad told The Times.

On the other hand, Broad is more worried about the amount of overs Chris Woakes has bowled this summer as he is expected to bowl with the new ball, having made a comeback after a long rehab. 

“Chris Woakes will probably have the new ball. I love Woakesy, but I am worried about the amount of overs he’s bowled this summer — not enough. He’s someone who needs overs under his belt to get his rhythm. Not like Mark Wood, who can hit the ground running straight away after a layoff — Woakes needs to get going and find his rhythm,” he added.

Furthermore, Broad is a bit worried about the inexperience in the spin attack with Shoaib Bashir announced in the XI for the first Test. He reckoned that bowlers need to be pretty particular with their lines and lengths at Leeds.

“We’ve got an inexperienced young spinner too [Shoaib Bashir] there are a lot of unknowns. It spins at Headingley, so there is no chance they don’t pick their specialist spinner,” he stated.

“There are some younger guys who have not played in the cauldron and intensity of an India or Australia series and it is the next level of scrutiny. There is real pressure. Headingley has a lightning-quick outfield — if you make any mistakes on your length, the batsman just whizzes away. If there are clouds, it can swing around, but if you get it wrong there you disappear at a rate of knots,” he observed.

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