In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the video of Stuart Broad throwing a ball at debutante star Zulqarnain Haider, Day 3, 2nd Test. Pretty mean stuff, especially Broad’s cursory apology:
And this is Simon Jones throwing a ball at Matthew Hayden. There are some differences: Hayden did step out of his crease for a bit, but more importantly, Jones had the decency to go up to him and apologize and take Hayden’s curses to his face:
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There’s also a core difference. Jones was trying to his the stumps. The ball bounced before it hit Hayden. Broad threw it on the full at Haider, about chest high. Was Broad even aiming at the stumps?
My impression was that Broad was tossing it to the keeper (was it the end of the over? either way modern sides normal send the ball via the designated shiner), but missed, badly. It was his half-hearted semi-apologetic waft- the sort tennis players give when they’ve won a point off the net-tape – that was pathetic.
Russ…. he mean’t to throw it at the batsman. There was no other explanation. The wicketkeeper was not up to the stumps.
I don’t understand why everybody is so keen to give Stuart Broad the benefit of nearly Zero doubt, especially given his history. He has demonstrated a distinct lack of character repeatedly now. Either that, or all his teammates are lazy fools because they don’t behave like him.
It looks like he threw at Haider. It doesn’t look like anything else, then he’s too cheap to apologise properly.
Cheap and arrogant.
Kartikeya, and the keeper needs to be up to the stumps, why? Bowlers often toss the ball back towards the keeper, letting it bounce as they do so. The bouncing roughs up the ball, which eventually works towards getting it to reverse swing. Plus, even if Broad should have kept the ball up, he was frustrated. I don’t see why you’d attribute maliciousness to Broad. He might be a petulant whiner, but he’s never struck me as malicious.
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