Stuart Broad may have taken 604 Test wickets, including one from his final delivery in the game to win the match, and hit a six with the last Ashes ball he’ll ever face but that contribution to cricket pales into insignificance given his far greater achievement at the Oval.
He has cemented himself in sporting history with something far cuter.
Yes, The Thing With The Bails. If you haven’t yet witnessed the moment he first does it, imagine if you will the delicate, somewhat playful, reorganisation of fork and knife by butler Carson in Downton Abbey.
Broad lifts one bail, then the other, switching them round with the kind of nonchalant glee that has characterised much of his career.
Australia’s Marnus Labuschagne is the man on strike. He notices, grins at his partner. ‘What a wally,’ you can almost hear him think. It is that ball he’s caught. Broad’s delicate psych-out has done the job.
That moment would have been magic enough. But in the second innings, before Broad took what would be his penultimate wicket, he did it AGAIN.
If The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship hadn’t first been published in 1947, I’d be looking into whether author Stephen Potter wasn’t in fact a pseudonym for one SCJ Broad.
In this seminal work – aimed at amateur sporting enthusiasts of the time – detailed instructions are given on how exactly to make your opponent late enough for your round of golf that he is too flustered to perform, and what technical recommendations to make during a tennis game you are losing that will swing the tide your way.
Nowadays we would call them mind games. Professional sport is awash with them – consider Novak Djokovic congratulating his younger opponent Stefanos Tsitsipas on reaching a first grand-slam final at this year’s Australian Open. Tsitsipas had been in one before.
One he had lost to Djokovic. But when you’ve been in so many, the Serb seemed to imply, it’s hard to remember them all. Jose Mourinho mastered the art, designating three-time Premier League-winning manager Arsene Wenger a ’specialist in failure’.
Wenger only beat a Mourinho team twice in 19 attempts.
In football, it’s s***housery. Cricket’s love of mind games usually plays out as sledging. It can backfire, of course. Viv Richards famously responded to being told by bowler Greg Thomas what a ball looks like after missing a few by spanking his next for six. But whatever the outcome, my God, it’s fun to watch.
Scotland poised for cycling’s greatest show
This week the world’s greatest riders and their fans have rolled into Glasgow for what the airport proudly informs its arrivals is the Biggest Cycling Event Ever.
It is the start of the first combined Cycling World Championships, and local cabbies have been warned it should be as big as the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
At the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome on Friday night – where I’ll be presenting for Eurosport – gold medals are on the line in the women’s scratch race and men’s team sprint.
The world champs are mainly in Glasgow but this is Scotland’s event – junior downhill mountain bikers take on the Fort William course today, and the elites race there tomorrow. In all, seven different disciplines.
As cycling’s popularity in the UK continues to grow it’s a huge moment to bring the sport’s very different formats together. I’m expecting to become obsessed with cycle ball (it is what you think).
Where better to build on the success of the Tour de France and its record-breaking viewing figures this summer than with a bit of Scottish hospitality.
One particularly huge roar from the Glasgow crowds will be for Katie Archibald. The Glaswegian two-time Olympic gold medallist lost her partner, cyclist Rab Wardell, in tragic circumstances last year.
Wardell served as an adviser to the bid for these games, and Archibald says she wants to honour him by competing, even though just training has been a challenge in her grief. I wish her so well.
MORE : Each layer of the Fifa Women’s World Cup reveals something new
MORE : Stuart Broad is the greatest showman and his final curtain was a fitting end to superb Ashes
Share your story or advertise with us: Whatsapp: +2347068606071 Email: info@newspotng.com
