England pace legend Stuart Broad lauded former teammate James Anderson for becoming the first-ever pacer to complete 700 Test wickets, saying that one should ‘marvel at his skill’ besides talking about his dedication and mental resillience.
Anderson etched his name in history books on Saturday, becoming the first-ever pacer in the history of the sport to complete 700 wickets in Test cricket and overall only the third bowler to do so. The ageless English pace wonder, who will be turning 42 this July, achieved this milestone during India’s fifth and final Test against England in Dharamsala, getting wickets of Shubman Gill and Kuldeep Yadav.
In his column for Daily Mail, Broad was quoted as saying that he could not see any other pacer matching Anderson’s record. He also talked about the 41-year-old’s skill to take wickets of some of the best in the world in different conditions is worth marvelling at.
‘It is a phenomenal achievement and not one I can see another fast bowler matching. When people talk about Jimmy, they mention the dedication and the mental resilience to keep driving forward, and obviously, you do not play until you are 41 without that but this is now the time we should just marvel at his skill, really, because that is what it has taken to get that many wickets in different conditions, challenging the best batters in the world for more than 20 years,’ said Broad.
‘It is a shame in a way that he will not be able to remember joining the elite company of Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan for slightly better reasons in the sense that his moment came in a bit of a thumping at the end of a long tour for England,’ he added.