James Anderson And Stuart Broad Reveal Graeme Smith As A "Nightmare" To Bowl To

James Anderson and Stuart Broad are one of the greatest fast bowling pair of the modern era. The duo has claimed more than 1000 Test wickets between them and in the process, have tormented the best in the world, especially in overseas conditions.

The onslaught of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown has given a chance to cricketers to engage with each other via Instagram Live. Recently, the superstar English duo of Broad and Anderson engaged in an Insta Live session where both of them revealed former South African opener Graeme Smith as someone who gave them nightmares throughout his career.

Smith enjoyed great success against England. In the 21 Tests that the former South African captain player against England, Smith racked up seven hundred, which also included two double-hundreds during the 2003 summer in England.

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Broad wasn’t a part of that series in 2003 but has struggled against Smith, later on, the right-hander laments at the fact that he wasn’t as skillful as he is currently, and couldn’t challenge Smith with his round-the-wicket ploy, something that has reaped him great success against other left-handers, especially David Warner.

“Graeme Smith, I found an absolute nightmare. I wish I could have bowled at him having worked on my around the wicket stuff and try and draw him to drive through extra cover. But for me just over the wicket trying to swing it into the stumps, hopeless,” Broad said.

“I hated it”- James Anderson on bowling to Graeme Smith

James Anderson, who was a part of that 2003 series against South Africa as a 20-year-old rookie, echoed Broad’s words and revealed all he did back then, was to feed to Smith’s strength- his on-side play.

“I had exactly the same problem. When I first started, my first series against him was 2003 and all I could do then was swing the ball back in. I didn’t have an out-swinger to a left-hander and I couldn’t wobble the ball across him,” Anderson said.

“So I was just feeding his strength. I just got so annoyed. And when you thought ‘alright, I’ll start the ball a bit wider outside off stump’, and he still got it through the leg-side,” he added.

Anderson added: “He got two double hundreds in that series in 2003. He was just impossible to bowl to. I hated it.”

Anderson did get the better of Smith during the later stage of his career, dismissing him six times in seventeen Tests. However, Broad couldn’t as he only managed to dismiss the South African skipper once in ten Tests.

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