‘Angry’ Stuart Broad phoned Michael Vaughan over claim he should be dropped for second Pakistan Test

Vaughan wrote that Broad, a veteran of 117 Tests, should be dropped to ‘ruffle’ the England dressing room, which he feels has become too cosy in recent months

Stuart Broad had a good day with the ball at Headingley (Getty Images)

Stuart Broad has hit back at Michael Vaughan after the former England captain said he should be dropped from the side for the second Test. Broad returned to form with 3-38 as Pakistan were bowled out for 174, and afterwards admitted that he had called Vaughan to express his anger at views expressed in his Daily Telegraph newspaper column and BBC radio show this week.

Vaughan wrote that Broad, a veteran of 117 Tests, should be dropped to “ruffle” the England dressing room, which he feels has become too cosy in recent months. But Broad firmly defended his own recent form, retorted that Vaughan had “little insight” into what happens in the dressing room, and suggested that he was being deliberately controversial in an attempt to stir attention.

“It’s a complete shot in the dark, because he doesn’t know what the changing room’s like,” Broad said. “I don’t think he’s got much insight into the changing room at all. The players don’t talk to him about cricket, or what’s going on in the changing room. But it’s personal columns, it’s radio shows that need likes and airtime.

“I like punditry. I like hearing different people’s opinions, I respect people’s opinions when it’s fair. I didn’t feel last week it was particularly fair. Only two Tests ago, I got eight wickets in Christchurch. I’ve been beating the bat, I’ve been getting wickets for Nottinghamshire. But that’s the world we live in. You get used to both positive and negative opinions, but this time it did anger me a little bit, because I thought it was a bit unfair and a bit targeted.

“I called him. I’m friends with Vaughany, he was a fantastic captain to me, I like sharing a glass of wine with him. I called him and expressed my disappointment. He had his opinions on the headlines, et cetera. I’m very open to criticism. I’m not going to hold a grudge if I feel like I deserve it, but I don’t really feel like I deserved that. I thought I’d express that opinion to him, because there’s no point in it spinning around my mind and annoying me.”

Broad felt that England needed a performance after their supine display at Lord’s, and said that the disappointment over their First Test defeat had spurred them into improvement. “At this level you’ve always got a point to prove,” he said. “As a team, we didn’t do ourselves justice at Lord’s. We left angry, because it’s always frustrating when you do a lot of talking and training and then collectively put in a performance like that.

Stuart Broad celebrates the wicket of Imam ul-Haq (Getty Images)

“But we’ve trained very specifically and well here at Headingley. We talked a lot about specific lengths at Lord’s, and almost got too focused on the exact lengths we were hitting, the percentage of this, the percentage of that. We’re here because we’ve got a good feel for the game. Let’s play with our instincts, and make the batsman play as often as we can. It doesn’t matter whether they’re playing and missing from back or a length or full of a length.”

Broad confirmed that England would also have batted had they won the toss, and that they were surprised by the amount of movement on offer, especially off the pitch. He also suggested that his fuller length was partly a function of bowling down the hill at Headingley, a local peculiarity that seemed to unsettled debutant Sam Curran in his first Test innings. “You can see he’s not bowled here much,” Broad said. “I let the hill take me down, and appreciate it’s going to push me fuller.”