Stuart Broad, the England pacer, picked up a hat-trick in his team’s first two-day practice match on their tour of the West Indies.
It capped off a satisfying warm-up for the visitors against CWI President’s XI, with Joe Root and Ben Stokes making fifties, and the bowlers taking 19 wickets (the teams had agreed that England would bowl the whole of the second day, regardless of the number of wickets).
Broad recently revealed that, inspired by New Zealand legend Richard Hadlee and his own team-mate Jimmy Anderson, he had tweaked his action, including with a shorter run-up. He was thrilled at how it worked for him.
The veteran England pacer, in fact, took four wickets in five balls. He remembered his feats from exactly three years before, when at the Wanderers in South Africa he had taken 6/17, including 5/1 in a devastating 10-over spell. While these figures won’t count towards his first-class tally, given the nature of the game, he was hopeful that it was a sign of things to come in the Tests starting 23 January.
Broad and Anderson have formed one of the best new-ball pairs, but since last year, England have been open to trying out another pairing, with Sam Curran providing an option. Curran opened the bowling in the warm-up game and his senior said that was part of the plan.
