Stuart Broad regrets not being able to take advice from Mohammad Asif
Stuart Broad has come out of the closet following his 169 run innings that devastated the Pakistan side, to speak out on his team’s commitment and focus as well as commenting on the spot-fixing scandal that has enveloped the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 team. Coach Andy Flower felt that the English players had a hard time coming to terms with Pakistan’s betting scandal which has rocked the cricketing world. However, Broad felt that it was England’s professionalism that helped the team win the first T20 match following a slight hiccup in the middle.
England won the match with 5 wickets and 17 balls to spare in the end. On the other end of the spectrum, Pakistan and its team have gone through some testing times in the last few days with the media castigating them and some quarters calling for the complete ban on the Pakistan cricket team altogether. Three Pakistan players have also been suspended by the ICC and at present, Pakistan is playing with a reduced 13 member squad. However, they are expected to have a couple of replacements before the ODI series which starts later this month. According to rumours from certain quarters, it is believed that several players do not want to play under Captain http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482, and if these rumours are found to be true, it would become a serious hurdle for the Pakistani team management to overcome before the ODI series.
Broad on the other hand believed that the team was focused to do the job on the pitch. He opined, "You can get distracted by everything going on. But at the end of the day, that doesn't help you bowl the ball and hit it out of the park. Speaking personally, I've kept myself pretty well away from it. I've tried not to read too much or get myself too involved in it, because I want to focus on these two Twenty20 games here.”
England won the first Twenty20 against Pakistan on Sunday after a wonderful comeback from 62 for 5 with Eoin Morgan performing exceptionally well with the bat. Broad correctly stated after the match that no team had any excuse for not being aware of the threats that players face when they become international stars as bookmakers approach most people at the international level. Moreover, Broad believed that it was the responsibility of the team management to keep the players out of harm’s way. Therefore ignorance he felt was no excuse not even for teenage sensation Mohammad Amir. Stuart Broad opined that even he was aware of dangers of these illegal activities which were drummed into him when he came as a 19 year old boy by the ECB, and that it is the responsibility of the board to ensure that players stay out of trouble.
"I don't know what other boards do, I can only speak as an England player," he said. "But the ECB are very regimented in the advice they give us, because that's the responsibility that they have to take to make sure every player is educated. We get hand-outs, handbooks. With the amount of books I've got from the ICC at home, full of information, there's certainly no excuse as players. As soon as you come into the England team, the ICC get hold of you; you're put through this video, which is very watchable, very clear - it takes you back to when you were five or six, that's how clear it is. It outlines everything you're not allowed to do, everything you are allowed to do."
However, Stuart Broad has expressed his regrets of not having been able to properly chat with his former http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 and the conditions down under, keeping in mind the fact that Mohammad Asif took 6 wickets for 41 runs in Sydney - a test match Pakistan went on to lose.
He also seemed hopeful, that the players and both the teams would find time to immerse themselves in the game and find their focus and rhythm following match-fixing allegations that have given the game of cricket a serious battering.
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