Desperate for crowds to be able to enjoy sport, says Stuart Broad

Broad had an amazing season for England this year as he finished with 29 wickets from five matches. Along the way, he also breached the 500 wicket mark in the longest format of the game.

London [UK], October 4 (ANI): England pacer Stuart Broad has said that he is desperate for crowds to be able to come back to the stadiums to enjoy the sport in the UK.

Broad had an amazing season for England this year as he finished with 29 wickets from five matches. Along the way, he also breached the 500 wicket mark in the longest format of the game.

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England played Test series against West Indies and Pakistan this year and all the matches were played behind closed doors. The Joe Root-led side managed to win both the series.

“Obviously I’m desperate for crowds to be able to come back and enjoy our sport. Let’s be honest, the health and safety of people are much more important than that. But yeah, to be honest, I’m not even looking as far as Australia: I think England next April or May has got to be at the forefront of our minds to be able to get sports fans back into our stadiums,” ESPNCricinfo quoted Broad as saying.

“The experts will study everything and hopefully we’re in a position in our country that that could happen – I know in October, we were due to start getting some fans back into stadiums but things took a little turn for the worse,” he added.

England will next play Test cricket in 2021 and the side will lock horns with India and Sri Lanka. It is likely that both the series will involve teams staying in a bio-secure bubble.

“To be honest, I wouldn’t have concerns about going away to a bio-secure bubble because I’ve seen it work so well this summer. It’s felt very secure. We’ve had teams fly over and come into our bubble, and it seems to have worked really well, so if the likes of the IPL continue to work I don’t see a reason why we can’t do these bio-secure bubbles all around the world to get cricket on the screens,” Broad said.

“I personally would be happy to go anywhere as long as it was a bio-secure, safe environment to play some cricket because it gave everyone a boost this summer. If we got the go-ahead from the ECB – which I hope we do because I’m desperate to play some cricket this winter – I’m sure the players would be fully supportive of that,” he added.

Broad was named International Men’s Test Player of the Year winner as part of the first NatWest Cricket Awards, which honours both the community cricket club heroes and professional stars of the season in recognition of an extraordinary year for the sport.