It was a fairytale finish to Stuart Broad's Test career. The England pacer had announced on Day 3 of the fifth Ashes Test at the Oval that the Test was going to be his last and when the final day came, it was fitting that it was him who took the last two Australian wickets to fall to clinch an England win and bow out with 604 Test wickets. He even finished the series as England's top wicket-taker with 22 scalps to his credit.
Other than a wicket off his final ball of his career, Broad had earlier smashed the final ball he faced in his international career for a six. His role in finishing off the game for the Three Lions was perhaps written in the stars but after his career came to an end with England beat Australia by 49 runs to draw the Ashes 2-2, Broad revealed one final regret of his Test career.
"I don't have many regrets about cricket. But I shouldn't have taken the new ball at Edgbaston. We failed to create more chances with it and it made Cummins and Lyon easy to bat on. If I could turn the clock back, I would bowl with the old ball. But in the end, when you lose to a great team like Australia, you have to keep your head high," Broad said.
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One of the things that will also stay with Broad from his farewell Test would be the way he played mind games with Marnus Labuschagne and Todd Murph and got them out. In an attempt to disrupt the batter's concentration, he changed the bails of the wickets and both time he managed to get the batter out.
"If I had realized that 10 years ago, it would have been great. Just an Aussie thing but the one with Marnus' dismissal made me laugh. It was getting a bit frustrating in the end so decided to change the bails and it worked (smiles)," the 37-year-old added.