Stuart Broad - A picture of primal joy

Stuart Broad is upbeat. Upbeat as if he is prepping to bowl yet another over to David Warner. Or is he planning to do a Cerebappeal for one last time?

He has decided to walk out, smiling and celebrating. He would do what he has always done. Even before taking the first of 604 Test wickets. What if it is the last game of cricket he would ever play? 

Nothing about Broad’s persona gives away anything other than a showman who is there to enjoy the craft of his own conscious enterprise. Everything about him makes it a marvellous feat of cricketing nirvana. Then why would he walk out teary-eyed?

So he started to run. The scrambled seam moved away from a tentative Alex Carey, and a genuinely impressive Jonny Bairstow gobbled it behind the stumps to draw curtains on one of the most well-fought and memorable Ashes series of all time.

Even before the Oval crowd could grasp the enormity of the occasion and how bloody good their team had been in the last three weeks, Stuart Broad vanished from the non-striker's end. He has gone back to do what he does best - the celebration. He didn’t have to wait for the Umpire’s decision. But then, did he ever?

A public acknowledgement followed, but Broad somehow found James Anderson. He always does. The duo embraced each other as a profound celebration of the deep friendship they have harboured for close to a decade and a half. It is when cricket would want to stop and take a snapshot of the glory days that defined English Test culture like nothing else.

Even before Bazball became a theory and a way of life in English cricket, it was the duo of Anderson and Broad who have constantly been each other’s ally and England’s biggest hope. They share 1,294 Test wickets between them - a feat that may never be surpassed by any fast-bowling duo in the next 100 years - but more importantly, they share a deep mutual respect for each other.

It is this respect that has been the fulcrum of England’s many victories over the years, even before Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum ushered in a new era of playing red-ball cricket. To gauge the magnificence, remember, no bowler in the history of cricket has taken more wickets against Australia than Broad, and no bowler in the history of cricket probably has done it with more swag.

But in the moment of all attention, Broad, a showman, would still do the right thing. He received all the plaudits and congratulations but quickly embraced Moeen Ali, whose talk time for the SOS call was over on Monday. Moeen was never going to make a comeback to the Test arena in the first place, yet he was here. Broad knew how massive it was to have Moeen’s services against Australia and that the Birmingham all-rounder was bowing out of the arena; the world duly needed to acknowledge his impact. 

At a time when cricketers tend to overstay their welcome, Broad bowed out on a high as a modern-day giant. "To take a wicket to win an Ashes Test match being my final ball was something that will make me smile for the rest of my life. When the dust has settled, it will sink in. It still doesn't feel massively real."

It doesn’t feel massively real, but then again, he has never been a regular customer of the real world. He has always operated in a land of fantasy. That is how a golden lock bowler, seemingly having a little luck in the first few months of his career, ended up as one of the greatest fast bowlers in the sport. That’s how Stuart Christopher John Broad will want to be remembered as joy.