Stuart Broad speaks out against online abuse, reveals cricketers' difficult 'worst person in world' experience

Stuart Broad, England's former Test bowler with 604 wickets in the format has opened up on online and social media abuse recently. His comments stem from the current problem players have to go through almost regularly on social media.

Recently in Indian cricket, Hardik Pandya too had to bear the brunt of hate across social media platforms with Mumbai Indians finishing last on IPL 2024. He turned the boos into blessings with his performances in the T20 World Cup and being a part of India's T20 World Cup winning squad.

Meanwhile, Broad finished as the second-highest wicket-taker for England in the format. He is one of the very few players to have played 50 matches across the three formats. He played 167 Test matches, 121 ODI matches, and 56 T20I matches finishing with 847 international wickets.

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You Can't Win Against Social Media: Stuart Broad

Stuart Broad spoke at a recent podcast on the side effects of social media for cricketers. He recalled England's innings defeat to South Africa at Lord's in 2022.

"If we lose a game, and you go on Social Media, you would literally think you are the worst person in the world. So we lost a match against South Africa at Lord's and Stokes and Baz spoke about not being scared of losing because the way we are going to play we are going to risk losing to win more games and entertain," said Broad on the 4Cast Youtube channel.

"This loss will do us good because it proves we've to play in a more entertaining and more positive way next time. So that made me be able to put that loss behind me straight away. And if you hold on to that negativity it can be really difficult to deal with. There's no win with it ( Social Media), you can't win," he added further.

He further said that it is increasingly difficult for modern cricketers to deal with negativity and media trials than it was in the early 2000s due to social media.

"It's much harder now as when i started you had to buy a newspaper, find the cricket article and read that you are crap. I am glad I've got experience behind me when Social Media arrived at our doorstep. Can see how difficult it must be for young professionals," stated Broad.

Broad even reflected on how the England national cricket team was treated after they lost the previous Ashes series against Australia.

Stokes was a part of that discussion too on the podcast. He spoke about England's series loss to India in India earlier this year when their Bazball experiment failed badly. He said that the current squad given how expressively they play Test cricket has been dealt with a lot of negativity.

"Getting older and being in so many different situations in sports gives you invaluable experience and maturity almost. Being in the position we are in, yes we get some amazing things but we are also exposed to a lot of negativity from people. There's no such thing as a bad day in sport" said Stokes on the same podcast.

England are currently playing a Test series against West Indies. They won the first test by an innings and 114 runs and won the second Test by 241 runs at Trent Bridge. They have now moved up on the WTC points table to the sixth position from the bottom of the table with a PCT of 31.25. West Indies, on the other hand, have slipped to the bottom.

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