England veteran showed undimmed resolve in his 157th Test to wring out three cheap wickets in tough bowling conditions
Here he comes again then, running in from the Fort End, a flat and disobliging pitch underneath, and a new ball to work with. This is Jimmy Anderson’s 19th year in Test cricket, and his 157th Test, not that any of that seems to make much difference. As his teammate Mark Wood said at the end of the day, Anderson seems to be bowling just as well as ever. This is his fifth tour of Sri LankaHe came here when he was a kid in 2003, for his first Test overseas, and got carted around the SSC, again in 2007, a stray game at the end of his wilderness years, and in 2012, one of the world’s best bowlers now, and in 2018, when he played second fiddle to England’s spinners.
He knows a lot about the place by now, not least that Sri Lanka’s an unforgiving place for his sort of bowling. Anderson’s record there is worse than it is anywhere. In all that time he’s only taken 12 wickets at an average of 46 runs each, and at a strike rate of 88. His wickets here have been rare, and expensive. Given that, a lot of bowlers his age might have decided there would be easier, and more pleasurable, ways to spend a winter than flogging themselves through it all over again. With Anderson, though, you guess there’s nothing else he’d rather do than try to set it right.
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