Former England captain Nasser Hussain has expressed his surprise at the snubbing of England’s top two leading wicket-takers, James Anderson and Stuart Broad, for the upcoming West Indies tour.
Anderson and Broad, who have a combined 1177 Test wickets, were omitted from England’s squad for the 3-Test tour of West Indies as part of the red-ball reset by Andrew Strauss, ECB’s interim managing director of men’s cricket, who selected the squad with interim coach Paul Collingwood and national scout James Taylor, following the 4-0 Ashes embarrassment in Australia.
Nasser Hussain said that dropping both the legendary pacers was a big call from Andrew Strauss, who had in 2015 reset England’s white-ball team that later won the 2019 World Cup.
Hussain said that while the decision of retiring will totally be the pair’s call, but admitted that Broad and Anderson deserved much better than this axing, especially when both of them have been in brilliant form over the past few years, and made most of what they were given in the Ashes.
“There was a lot of talk about maybe one of them being left out, not both, so it’s a big call from Andrew Strauss,” Hussain told Sky Sports on Wednesday.
“Well that decision [to retire completely] is now obviously in Broad and Anderson’s hands. They’re very proud cricketers, and it’s not easy at their age to suddenly have a massive gap, and I really feel for Broad and Anderson, I have to be honest.
“I think they deserved better. The toil and the pain and the sweat and the hours in the gym to get to where they are, get back to fitness after carrying injuries.”
Hussain hoped that this isn’t the end of Broad and Anderson in England shirts and wishes to see them play in the home summer.
“They know they’ve not got long left, they know it might be a matter of months or a year maybe, and they would want to play every cricket possible to make sure they are there right at the end of their careers and can say, ‘I got as much out of myself as I possibly could’,” he added.
“I do feel for them, and they’re proud men. They may say, ‘Okay thank you very much, we’ll go into other things’, who knows? I hope this isn’t the end, because I think they deserved better.”
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