Stuart Broad to retire from cricket at end of Oval Test

Stuart Broad has announced that the ongoing fifth Test of the Ashes series will be the last match of his professional career.

Broad made his decision "at about 8.30pm" on Friday evening, the second day of the Test at The Oval, and informed his long-standing team-mates James Anderson and Joe Root of his decision before play on Saturday morning, and was understood to be fighting back tears at the time.

He will bow out as the fifth-highest wicket-taker in Test history, and second among seam bowlers behind only his team-mate Anderson, having reached 600 Test wickets during the Old Trafford Test last week.

"It's been a wonderful ride, a huge privilege to wear the Nottinghamshire and the England badge as much as I have," Broad told Sky Sports at the close of the third day's play. "And I'm loving cricket as much as I ever have. It's been such a wonderful series to be a part of, and I've always wanted to finish at the top. And this series just feels like it's been one of the most enjoyable and entertaining I've been a part of."

Broad has scope to add to his current tally of 602 wickets when England embark on the fourth innings at The Oval, where they will aim to square the Ashes series at 2-2, and could yet add to his runs tally of 3656 after he and Anderson finished the third day unbeaten in their tenth-wicket stand.

His career, however, will be synonymous with Ashes cricket. Uniquely, he has played in every home Ashes Test since his first series against Australia in 2009, claiming 104 wickets at 26.56 in those 25 Tests. In the course of this series, he also overtook Ian Botham's long-standing record for Test wickets against Australia, with a total of 151 now to his name.

"I've been thinking about it for a while, a few weeks," he added. "England vs Australia has always been the pinnacle for me - I have loved the battles with Australia that have come my way and the team's way, I have a love affair with Ashes and I think I wanted my last bat and bowl to be in Ashes cricket.

"I told Stokesy [Ben Stokes] last night and told the changing room this morning and, to be honest, it just felt the right time and I didn't want friends or Nottinghamshire team-mates to see things that might come out, so I prefer to just say it now, and just give it a good crack for the last Australia innings.

"I have thought a lot about it, and even up till 8pm last night, I was 50/50. But when I went up to Stokesy's room and told him, I have felt really happy since and content with everything I have achieved."

Broad made his England debut in a T20I against Pakistan in Cardiff in August 2006, two months after his 20th birthday, and went on to play the first of his 167 Tests the following winter, against Sri Lanka at the SSC in Colombo.

He claimed a solitary wicket in that contest, that of Chaminda Vaas, on what was one of the most unforgiving surfaces he would ever encounter, but his career began in earnest in Wellington the following March, when he and Anderson were selected for the second Test against New Zealand, in place of the Ashes-winning pair of Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard, and together proved instrumental in instigating a 2-1 series turnaround.

As for his longest-standing team-mate, Anderson - around whom most of the retirement speculation in this series has swirled - Broad was as unequivocal as the man himself had been when asked of his own plans on the second evening.