Book Review: Broadly Speaking by Stuart Broad

Cricketer Stuart Broad, who retired in the summer after a stellar career, has been shortlisted for the prestigious BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2023 award following his dramatic performance in the Ashes series against Australia.

He will be up against jockey Frankie Dettori, footballer Mary Earps, wheelchair tennis player Alfie Hewett, athlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson and golfer Rory McIlroy.

The winner will be announced shortly before 9pm at the end of the live awards show on BBC One and viewers will get the chance to vote for their favourite.

Ahead of Stuart’s big night we have reviewed his new autobiography, Broadly Speaking, which went on sale recently.

The 37-year-old gives a unique insight into what it is like playing Test cricket – he finished with 604 wickets for England, the fifth-highest haul of any Test bowler in history.

Stuart talks revealingly about the impact his family had on his career, particularly mum Carole, who drove him to sports matches all over the area but always stressed that he had fun more than anything else.

The book describes how he honed his cricketing skills in the back garden of the family home at Whissendine.

At this stage the young Stuart was a real sporting all-rounder and describes how he enjoyed playing in the winters for Melton Mowbray rugby club juniors and turning out as a striker for Asfordby Amateurs.

Joining Melton’s Egerton Park Cricket Club, where stepdad Nick Joyce, was a game-changer, he explains in his book.

“It was a lovely little place to play,” Stuart writes.

" From those Thursday nights of orange balls and blue stumps, I graduated to the youth teams and then into men’s cricket from the age of 13, batting at number eight, and bowling a few overs here and there...Egerton Park represented everything that is good about club cricket. After matches on a Saturday, all the kids would play cricket on the field while someone stoked up the barbecue. Heading down there felt like an addiction to me. I just wanted to be involved.”

Stuart reveals the challenge he faced living up to the achievements of dad, Chris, an opening batsman in the England Test side.

A growth spurt gave him more stature as he developed his skills at Oakham School and then with Leicestershire County Cricket Club in the first class game.

He was given an annual salary at the Grace Road club of just £5,000 but this didn’t faze Stuart, who writes ‘I was buzzing...This was my dream’.

Stuart, who was born nine weeks premature with a lung defect, recalls an acute asthma attack he suffered in November 2000 which could have scuppered his sporting career before it had really started.

“Mum raced to the hospital in Melton Mowbray and I was treated immediately, the doctors placing me on steroids to reduce inflammation and swelling in the airwaves...I was too poorly to play sport for several months,” he writes.

“Naturally, I lost confidence during this time, but thankfully asthma didn’t affect me again on a sports field until the back end of my professional career.”

‘Broadly Speaking’ is published by Hodder & Stoughton.