Sport | Cricket
Broad finds his feet on the international stage
A year after suffering the humiliation of being hit for six sixes in an over by India's Yuvraj Singh in the Twenty20 World Cup, England's Stuart Broad seems to be finally finding his feet in international cricket.
- By Gautam Bhattacharyya, Deputy Sports Editor
- Published: 00:30 September 12, 2008
- Image Credit: Megan Hirons/Gulf News
- A year after suffering the humiliation of being hit for six sixes in an over by India's Yuvraj Singh in the Twenty20 World Cup, England's Stuart Broad seems to be finally finding his feet in international cricket.
Dubai: A year after suffering the humiliation of being hit for six sixes in an over by India's Yuvraj Singh in the Twenty20 World Cup, England's Stuart Broad seems to be finally finding his feet in international cricket.
Video: Top cricket stars descend on ICC awards
Having just done his bit in England's remarkable turnaround in the one-day series against South Africa, Broad was in town as one of the nominees for the ICC's Emerging Player of the Year award.
"A new captain had certainly worked wonders for the team," he said of the series when the hosts walloped Graeme Smith's men following their humiliation in the Test series. Kevin Pietersen, who took over as England captain in both forms of the game, led from the front with an attacking century and a good run with the bat.
Asked what led to the transformation, the son of the former England opener Chris Broad told Gulf News: "We drew up a new gameplan and focused on practising hard for the one-day series.
"Since batting was a problem area, the idea was not to lose wickets early and accelerate later. This worked well in matches like the one at Headingley where KP (Pietersen) and (Andrew) Flintoff took us home," said the fresh faced Broad.
While this year Broad lost out to the enigmatic Ajantha Mendis for the Emerging Player award, chances are he could make bigger claims in the future.
The bowler has all the pretensions of becoming a good allrounder, and already has three half-centuries to his name in nine Tests so far - statistics which give him an average of 37.20.
"Yes, I plan to take up my batting even more seriously and seal the No 8 spot for England. Our new batting coach, Andy Flower, is giving me special attention," he added.
ICC Cricket awards 2008
- Cricketer of the Year: Shivnarine Chanderpaul (West Indies)
- Test Player of the Year: Dale Steyn (South Africa)
- ODI Player of the Year: Mahendra Singh Doni (India)
- Emerging Player of the Year: Ajantha Mendis (Sri Lanka)
- T20 international performance of the year: Yuvraj Singh (India)
- Associate Player of the Year: Ryan ten Doeschate (The Netherlands)
- Women's Cricketer of the Year: Charlotte Edwards (England)
- Umpire of the Year: Simon Taufel (Australia)
- Spirit of Cricket Award: Sri Lanka
TEAMS
ICC Test Team of the Year: Graeme Smith (RSA, capt), Virender Sehwag (IND), Mahela Jayawardene (SRI), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WIS), Kevin Pietersen (ENG), Jacques Kallis (RSA), Kumar Sangakkara (SRI, wkt), Brett Lee (AUS), Ryan Sidebottom (ENG), Dale Steyn (RSA), Muttiah Muralitharan (SRI). 12th man: Stuart Clark (AUS).
ICC ODI Team of the Year: Herschelle Gibbs (RSA), Sachin Tendulkar (IND), Ricky Ponting (AUS, capt), Younis Khan (PAK), Andrew Symonds (AUS), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (IND, wkt), Farveez Maharoof (SRI), Daniel Vettori (NZL), Brett Lee (AUS), Mitchell Johnson (AUS) and Nathan Bracken (AUS). 12th man: Salman Butt (PAK).
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