How Stuart Broad and Jasprit Bumrah broke a world record

In many ways, Broad is the perfect cricketer. His ability to liven up any situation by just being funnier than other players is now legendary.

I mean, World Records are really for steroided up runners or swimmers in scientifically advanced cheat suits. But we have them in cricket as well. But we don't celebrate or fetishise them in the same way as some other sports do. But Broad changed that today.

It was only during his over that I realised that of the four biggest scoring overs in Test cricket history, I have now been at three.

And looking at the list, it was clear some of these overs had great stories.

That is what Stuart Broad bowling to Jasprit Bumrah was. It was batshit insane.

England had just taken the new ball in what has been a fresh pill summer, and they were bowling to India's numbers ten and eleven. Surely the best plan of attack at this point was a bunch of slips, two men back for the surprise short ball and trying to bowl a good line and length at them. But you'd be wrong thinking that. The best plan was bowling really short.

Even if we had seen Bumrah take runs off England trying to do this before.

Let's just look at what happens when you bowl at numbers ten and eleven in Tests with pace.

The worst zone to a tailender is usually the full ball. This is the impatient quick, looking for the Yorker. That ball is sensational, but being the best bowlers can deliver it successfully 50% of the time (at most), most attempts will be half volleys and full tosses. So the tail don't mind that too much.

The next worst ball is the short one. And while the tail doesn't like them, any short ball in Tests is going to have a high economy because a top edge or mishit can go for six. There are plenty of leg byes off helmets and shoulders. And you can only have two fielders behind square.

The best lengths are unsurprisingly a good one and at the body. They keep the run rate lower and also get the tail out more. Now if the ball is old, or you have very fast bowlers, the short ball is still worth a go. But Broad isn't that fast anymore, and the ball was brand new. This is the weirdest time to go in with this tactic.

With all that said, the first ball of this over was almost caught as Bumrah tried to hook. So while it's not the most logical option, it still could have worked.

Broad obviously is emboldened by this and goes for another short ball, but this time it is way too short, and flies over the top of Bumrah and Sam Billings for five wides.

The following is another top edge that goes towards third before carrying the boundary, and it's a no-ball as well. So that means in one legal ball in this over Broad has conceded 16 runs, which is perhaps the best clue that your short ball bowling plan isn't working. But in his mind, and perhaps Stokes, who kept talking to him, they saw the edges and thought it was worth pursuing.

And Broad does try something else, a waist high full toss which I assume was supposed to be a Yorker that goes horribly wrong and is clubbed away for another boundary. Whatever length he was going for, he missed it by metres. When you see this side on, you wonder why this wasn't a no-ball too. Meaning that really after one delivery Broad should have given up 21 runs.

Either way, surely the idea of bowling short at people isn't working. So Broad keeps the same field, but bowls a length ball that gets inside edged to the boundary. It is very funny. And weird.

So he goes straight back to short balls again. And ofcourse Bumrah smashes it to the boundary. However, it is better than this. Because Bumrah falls over and he misses the boundary happening because he is trying to not kick his own stumps down. Which he manages to do by millimetres.

And that all this is happening to Stuart Broad, the highest-scoring tailender in the game's history and one of the most amusing batters we have ever had, makes it even more fun.

Bumrah is literally doing to Broad what Broad has done to so many, but even better.

Because of those last two balls, something else has happened. Broad has now conceded the most runs in an over in Test cricket history. Equal most, with three others.

So let's look at their stories.

At the bottom is Ross Taylor against Nathan Hauritz, it's awesome that Jeetan Patel is involved for one run. Way to help the record, Jeets.

Ramnaresh Sarwan smashed an over from Munaf Patel. Sarwan was not an attacking player. His career strike rate is less than Alastair Cook's.

Above them on the list is Nathan Astle and Chris Cairns smashing Andy Caddick. This one is great because it is two kiwis smashing another player born there.

But the greatest story here - and one of the best ever in cricket - can be seen next when Bert Sutcliffe and Bob Blair face Hugh Tayfield. Let's start with Tayfield, one of the best off-spinners in the game at the time, and he was famous for never being hit.

In fact, he has the equal lowest economy of bowlers with 150 wickets. No one ever hit him.

Until this over. Earlier in the innings Sutcliffe had been hit in the head, collapsed unconscious at the crease, went to hospital, collapsed again, came back to the ground, drank some whiskey, went out to bat, and bled through his bandages. They had to start using a towel so he could keep batting.

And he thought the innings was over with the fall of the ninth wicket. And that was because Blair was thought to be back at the team hotel. Because his fiancee had died the day before in New Zealand's biggest ever train accident. But he did come out and bat, and Sutcliffe told him they might as well swing. So they did. From their eight ball over, they hit 25 runs off the most parsimonious bowler in history and broke the world record.

Anything I tell you next is going to feel like a letdown. But I do think Andy Roberts smashing Ian Botham is weird because you would assume that Botham was a chance to be on this list in the other direction, but instead makes it as a bowler against another bowler.

Mitchell Johnson made everyone think he could be an allrounder when he smashed the famous defense minded left-arm finger spinner Paul Harris.

Here is Brian Charles Lara's first entry in his second last Test. This one allegedly happened when Danish Kaneria sledged him. Probably the second worst thing Kaneria ever did.

Then we get to the first one I was at, where Joe Root smashed Keshav Maharaj for 28 runs in an over. No, wait, that's how it should be, but weirdly it is actually Maharaj smashing Root. This was funny because Root just desperately wanted a five-wicket haul and kept himself on. And instead equalled a world record.

And I was at the next one, and I love this too. Because this was Jimmy Anderson, the most successful seam bowler in history, mid career, being treated like a club swing bowler with a hernia. I honestly saw this and thought Anderson was finished forever. And weirdly it was George Bailey who finished his brief career after this. During the rain break they should have handed over the title between Anderson to Broad.

I wasn't at the other Brian Charles Lara one. But Neil Manthorp was, and he told me that it was the second last over of the day. Mervyn Dillon had just blocked out a maiden. The day was fizzling out when Robin Petersen came on to bowl and Lara decided that he must go. It's a hell of a way to get to stumps. The following over had only two runs.

And that all brings us back to Broad's over to Bumrah. Because after the four balls, he had only equalled the world record. And we should talk about world records. Generally they only get beat by a little bit. This is the progression of the pole vault, one of my favourite incremental world records.

It goes slowly between people, and then just the one guy over and over again at a point.

Though at times, world record's really get broken. This is one of the first stories I ever told my son. It was about Bob Beamon the athlete and champion for racial rights who broke the long jump by so far that this looks made up.

And other athletes have this before, but it is rare to break a world record by so much. We had Sanath Jayasuriya and Roshan Mahanama break the world record for the most runs in a partnership by a lot.

But even so, this looks a bit more like the Bob Beamon one doesn't it.

I mean when Broad does something, he does it well. One thing he didn't break was the World Record for most runs in a first class over. He was behind the Shastri and Sobers six sixes, but also a long way behind Bob Vance. And it is worth knowing about that, so here is something I put in the New Zealand openers piece about Vance's World record.

But when I was glancing at the list of the most runs ever in a first class game, I saw something I'd never noticed before. Malcolm Nash was the left-arm bowler who Garry Sobers took for six sixes. And then just two runs back, you can find Nash again, because almost a decade later, he went for 34 runs again on the same ground.

Nash took almost 1000 first class wickets and once joked about having his ashes spread at St Helens, the ground where two of his overs went for 70 runs combined.

And this did get me thinking that maybe Vance or Nash was the worst bowler of an over in history. But that probably isn't true, because I had forgotten Broad's over to Yuvraj Singh.

When international T20 wasn't a thing, pre-Misbah, Broad also broke the world record for the most runs in a T20I over when Yuvi smashed six sixes. Broad still holds that record. He holds two of the three crowns. Meaning as it stands, he's an ODI comeback from unifying the world records.

But we haven't finished the over that started all this. Because to break the record, Broad was creamed by Bumrah for six from another short ball. This was the first ball Bumrah actually nailed a shot, and didn't even almost kick his stumps down.

And of course it was that ball that finally meant Broad was going to try to bowl full and straight, and find that Yorker your uncle had been screaming about. The Indian tail tried to steal a run, and so Broad had to run down and stop it. He did this by picking the ball up and sliding through the stumps that he scattered everywhere. And of course it was not out.

But it was another perfect moment of Broad in cricket, because when you think about it, he did to those stumps what Bumrah did to him.