Stuart Broad was a highly meme-able cricketer and it turns out that talent now extends into commentary. As Joe Root chopped Mitchell Starc on to his stumps during England’s subsidence on Saturday afternoon, Broad summed up the mood of a nation without uttering so much as a word.
In a clip that has since gone viral, Broad is in the Channel 7 box with his eyes shut, arms folded, letting out an exasperated sigh; the kind of internal “FFS” triggered by a toddler doing the very thing they were just warned against. Watching from the far end as two teammates fall to expansive drives on a bouncy, nippy surface, only to attempt a repeat against Starc, is a bit like pulling on the cat’s tail. Root did it anyway.
