London, Aug 22: Stuart Broad, a seamer who was struggling to find a place in the England squad at the beginning of India’s tour, ended up receiving the Man-of-the-Series award for his all-round effort. Indian coach Duncan Fletcher picked Broad for the award considering his all-round effort of 182 runs at an average of 60.66 and 25 wickets at a miserly average of 13.84.
Broad spoke to the media about his performance after receiving the award.
Excerpts from his media-interaction:
On his performance and being part of a fantastic bowling unit
Very much so, yes. [Graeme] Swann’s bowled fantastically well on this wicket. Today we have had to work very hard and we have bowled to a plan throughout this series and it has been very rewarding.
On Graeme Swann
He has been an integral part of our side for a long time now and to finish with six [wickets] today was brilliant. But I thought the way the seamers backed him up on a flat wicket was [commendable] as well.
On stifling the Indian batting line-up throughout the series
They have a powerful batting line-up but we had pretty clear plans throughout the series about the way we wanted to bowl; slightly fuller length mixing with a bit of bounce, and the wickets we play on have allowed that. So the plans have worked and we’re obviously delighted with the results.
On finding success with fuller length deliveries
That’s something we recognised at the start of the series, [that] I needed to bowl slightly fuller, bring the stumps into play, and that working at Lord’s obviously gave me confidence for the rest of the series. But it has been a fantastic team effort; first of all for the batsmen to get the runs on the board - the way they have allowed the bowlers to put the pressure on, and the way the series went was fantastic as well.
