Six, six, six, six, six, six. The perfect over for a batter but for a bowler a double dose of the devil’s number and the ultimate humiliation. “My brain had turned to fuzz,” says Stuart Broad of 19 September 2007 when Yuvraj Singh took him for 36 runs at Kingsmead in Durban. England had already crashed out of the inaugural T20 World Cup and a 21-year-old Broad suffered a colossal prang to his pride, the events of that night for ever changing him as a bowler.
England’s match against India was the second in a double-header. The game before ran over and cut into the preparation time for the second. “I marked my run-up at the end I was starting from, but either forgot or didn’t have time to mark it at the other end. I’d also never really done any death bowling. I think maybe Colly [Paul Collingwood, the England T20 captain] had messed up the overs and he was like: ‘You are back on to bowl now.’”
