There is a sense of epochal change in English cricket. For the first time in more than 20 years, the men’s Test summer began with neither Stuart Broad nor James Anderson available for selection, the former’s grandstand Ashes finish at The Oval followed swiftly by his long-term partner’s rather more enforced curtain-call at Lord’s last summer.
With the pair go 1,308 Test wickets and the grey matter that comes with trundling in the best part of 75,000 times, combined, with red ball in hand.
