Night-night, Nighthawk: Stuart Broad’s final shot in Test cricket

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It’s a weird feature of cricket that you can go out in style but then still carry on playing for the whole of the rest of the day and probably a good chunk of the next day as well. Stuart Broad ended his batting career gloriously.

Never mind the artifice of the guard of honour, the key detail was that we got to see the greatest batter the game has ever seen play his finest shot one last time. Not only that, but James Anderson then seized the moment and promptly got himself out so that it also proved to be the final ball he faced in Test cricket.

On this occasion the Stuart Broad hook shot went for six, but it would have been just as appropriate if he’d been caught out after utterly skying it. Therein lies the brilliance of what has been the ultimate six-or-out shot and also the purest distillation of Broad’s particular brand of nonsense-brilliance.

Night-night, Nighthawk.

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11 comments

  1. Oh boy are we going to miss him…

    …but more for the bowling and the chirp than the batting, however diverting the latter might be.

  2. There we are, then. A lovely little warm-up for the main event. Come on, you Birmingham Butterkist!

    1. His last ball faced was a six and his last delivery was a series-levelling wicket, and I was there for both. It truly felt written.

      Like the very loud fan near us who gradually waned in decibel level through the morning session, I carn’t spake.

      Cricket, eh?

  3. Cracking open a Marble Ginger for the highlights. Ability to spake better than if it hadn’t rained so much up here last week, but still not quite on top speaking form

    1. ….or typing, it seems.

      Ollie Robinson has really got to step it up if he wants to be in the Broad class of Winding Up The Australians

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