Stuart Broad revels in England's success and glimpses ahead to the shorter games that follow
By Rob Barnett
Stuart Broad barely had a chance to enjoy England’s one-day series victory in Antigua before looking to the Twenty20 rubber with West Indies and the World Twenty20 that follows.
Broad - standing in as 50-over captain for the rested Alastair Cook - oversaw England’s first success of the winter, which came courtesy of a 25-run win in the third and final ODI.
However, such is the short turnaround to the T20 leg of the tour in Barbados, the skipper had already to focus on a trio of sprint-format games that precede the global tournament in Bangladesh.
Yesterday's triumph came towards the end of a difficult few months that saw defeat to Australia in all three formats, games which Broad played the vast majority of.
Speaking exclusively to ecb.co.uk, he said: “You saw at the end the celebrations from the guys, how much it means to us to win a series.
“A lot of these guys haven’t been part of the one-day squad for a little while. To come over to the West Indies, play 50-over cricket and produce like we have done is awesome.
“We’re now into Twenty20 mode that we take to a World Cup, but I think we got a lot out the last two weeks here in Antigua.”
The one-day series started with a narrow loss for England, who responded by securing a tense win on Sunday.
Yesterday Joe Root’s first ODI ton and Jos Buttler’s 99 aided an imposing 303 for six, but a blistering hundred from Denesh Ramdin made the tourists sweat for victory.
“Winning helps your confidence and your belief, and to win in pressure scenarios in conditions that are a little bit foreign to us should help our belief. It should give us confidence,” Broad added.
“We’ve got to go to Barbados, adjust to conditions there. But part of being a Twenty20 cricketer and being in the England side - that is your biggest test - is adjusting to different wickets in Twenty20 cricket as quickly as you can. And that’s what we’ll have to do come Sunday.”