"If we lose a game and you go on social media, you would literally think you are the worst person in the world"- Stuart Broad on Online abuse
Former England pacer Stuart Broad opened up on dealing with haters and abuse on social media and the importance of filtering out the negativity stemming from that. The 38-year-old retired from international cricket after the home Ashes series last year.
Broad finished as the fifth leading Test wicket-taker with an incredible 604 wickets at an average of 27.68 in 167 games.
Regarding dealing with social media and its effects on the 4Cast YouTube channel, Broad cited an example of England's innings defeat against 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.
"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.
Broad further stated the difficulty of dealing with negative reactions now compared to when he started his career in the mid-2000s.
"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 has experienced several negative Social Media reactions during his illustrious career, especially after England's recent hammerings in the Ashes series in Australia.
"We are also exposed to a lot of negativity from people" - Ben Stokes
![[Credit: Getty] Stokes has had an eventful two years as England's Test captain](https://statico.sportskeeda.com/editor/2024/07/dc452-17217138818362-1920.jpg?w=500)
England's Test captain Ben Stokes echoed Stuart Broad's sentiments and said being famous among the public brings a lot of negativity from people.
More recently, England's 'Bazball' approach that came into existence after Stokes took over as captain in Tests in 2022 took massive criticism after their 1-4 series defeat to India in India.
On the same YouTube channel, Stokes said:
"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."
Stokes became only the third cricketer after Sir Garfield Sobers and Jacques Kallis to achieve the milestone of 6000 runs and 200 wickets in Tests.
The 33-year-old helped England win the 2019 ODI World Cup and 2022 T20 World Cup with match-winning performances in the finale.