Michael Vaughan calls on England to drop Stuart Broad
Former England captain Michael Vaughan has suggested England should drop Stuart Broad for the second Test against Pakistan.
Headingley will play host to the second and final match of the series, which England trail 1-0 after a humiliating nine-wicket defeat at Lord’s compounded fans’ misery after the dismal winter tours.
Believing something has to be done, Vaughan has claimed he would drop Broad from the playing XI for the next game.
The Test Match Special summariser said:
If England want to play Chris Woakes on Friday, I’d make the tough call that Broad doesn’t play,
Teams need a shake-up. I don’t want England to go to Headingley on Friday and Mark Wood to be the one left out. It’s easy to bring in Chris Woakes for Wood.
But for me, Wood plays. What’s he done wrong? He got 2-74 [against Pakistan]. The tactics were wrong for his style of bowling and that’s just the direction of the team and the captain.
Broad took one wicket in the Lord’s Test, but was one of England’s more economical bowlers, going at a rate of 2.44 runs an over in Pakistan’s first innings.
However, Vaughan thinks England need to start doing some things differently:
They just keep going with the same old every single week. This is just a think tank to drop Broad or James Anderson, and I hope people within the team and the management think ‘could it make a just a little difference?’ You never know.
Are they winning with them at the moment? Are they bowling as well as they were three of four years ago? No. Should Chris Woakes be in the side? Well, he has a great record in English conditions.
Vaughan believes a surprise selection could make England’s players realise their places in the side aren’t promised:
These are things I’m hoping the side are actually thinking about. England have lost eight games in the last 15 Test matches with that team, which has been the same eight or nine week in week out. You never know, it might ruffle a feather and change mentality and that’s what the England Test team need.