James Taylor says: Don’t make Stuart Broad England’s scapegoat – he will bounce back

Off the pace | Stuart Broad toils at the WACA, where he failed to take a wicket as England surrendered the Ashes
Paul Kane/Getty Images
James Taylor20 December 2017

To be a Test cricketer and earn a cap for your country, you need to be the very best in your position at the time, and right now in county cricket in England I do not see anyone better than Stuart Broad.

OK, in six months or a year or two that might not be the case, but that is the stark reality right now. There is no one else out there taking shed-loads of wickets and warranting that call-up.

Sure, Broad has had three poor Tests by his standards and the fact that he has not taken a wicket in 54 overs is far from ideal, but you do not suddenly dump someone with nearly 400 Test wickets to their name. I am certain he will come good again.

Saying that, it does not necessarily mean he should play in the next Test in Melbourne come Boxing Day.

England ratings | Ashes series 2017/18

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The series is lost, with England 3-0 down to Australia, so I understand the argument for testing out players with an eye to the future.

But if that is done with Broad coming out of the side, it needs to be made clear that he is not being dropped but simply rested. He certainly does not deserve to be dropped from the team.

The idea that this is the end of his career is nonsense, and he should not bear the brunt of England’s woes.

You could argue that maybe three-and-half players have been in good form in this series: Dawid Malan, Jonny Bairstow in patches, Mark Stoneman without getting a big score and then Jimmy Anderson. The list of Aussies who have shined includes Steve Smith, the Marsh brothers and their entire bowling attack.

Of course Broad is one of the players to have struggled, but singling him out among the bowlers is not fair.

Anderson has been fighting a battle on his own a lot of the time, with no one properly backing him up.

Chris Woakes has taken a few wickets but not performed as he would have liked, while Craig Overton has shown guts and determination but has not taken any five-wicket hauls, which you would want your bowlers to do.

In Pictures | The Ashes third Test | Dec 14-18

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Dissecting what has gone wrong for Broad, you would say he has lost a bit of his rhythm, and he does not hit the seam as consistently as he used to. Plus, by his own admission he falls away a lot in his action.

In Australia, bowling accurate line and length is not enough. If you are not getting movement off the seam, you need pace, and he has not got the speed of the Aussie quicks.

In short, he is not swinging it consistently, not hitting the seam consistently and not bowling quickly enough. When you are playing badly in Test cricket, it is one of the most unforgiving landscapes in which to find yourself, but he has experienced that before and bounced back, and he will do so again.

The injury to Overton probably means England will not take the gamble of resting Broad. The series is lost, but the selectors do not want that rout to get any worse.

I do not think the MCG is the right place to throw Mason Crane into the mix, but maybe the SCG is, for the final Test.

He is the one England bowler in Australia who has theX-factor. He is the sort of player who will get the Australians thinking and make them a tad uneasy.

As for the rest of the England side heading to the MCG, I do not see the selectors making any wholesale changes. I think the XI that has been picked is pretty much the best XI we have right now.

But there is no shortage of players in the team desperate to make their mark in these final two Tests.

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