Bowling attack of two old masters and one new star undo New Zealand before hosts’ batsmen come unstuck themselvesA reverend, a rabbi and a Buddhist nun walked into Lord’s. No joke. They were all taking part in a multi‑faith celebration of cricket organised during the lunch interval by the England and Wales Cricket Board’s outgoing CEO, Tom Harrison. It was billed as a demonstration of English cricket’s ability to bring people together. Out on the field, England’s bowlers were doing a pretty good job of that too.The stands were full, the sun was out, and the grass underneath it brilliant green. Jimmy Anderson was on from one end, Stuart Broad the other, the slips were catching bullets and New Zealand...
Two England greats may have been exiled, but how can people care when their careers have taken place behind paywalls?The Ashes aftershocks have rumbled on over the past week, and on Tuesday peaked with the news that neither Jimmy Anderson nor Stuart Broad will feature when the so-called “red-ball reset” begins in the Caribbean next month.Both are known to be hurt to miss out and a touch miffed at being told in a couple of short, sharp phone calls rather than in person. Broad was literally raging against the machine in his final outing – picking a fight with a robot camera that kept moving on the boundary’s edge in Hobart and his latest newspaper column continues the theme. Continue...
Two of England’s finest fast bowlers are casualties of a red-ball reset that straddles the line between bravery and stupidityIt’s the beginning of the end, then, for the two finest fast bowlers England have ever had, the decision to drop them as sudden and unexpected as a bullet in the back. Like they say in the Sopranos: “Our line of work, it’s always out there, you probably don’t even hear it when it happens.”Jimmy Anderson knows it. He wrote as much in his column just a couple of weeks ago: “Everyone’s future is in doubt, it always happens when you get beaten in Ashes.” But it’s one thing to say it, another to really believe it’s true and might be...
The 39-year-old bowler is steadily getting better despite the battle scars with the team going in the opposite direction Jimmy Anderson walked into the indoor nets at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and slumped into the first available chair. His eyes were weary. His boots were scuffed. His trousers were soaked in blood, a fielding injury from Adelaide two Tests earlier which had never been allowed to heal. The fourth Ashes Test of 2017-18 had just ended in an excruciating draw, Anderson had just bowled 59 thankless overs and only a lunatic would have entertained the notion that he would be back at this very ground in four years’ time for more of the same.A lunatic such as Jimmy Anderson, in...
Of the few bowlers to have reached four figures, none of them did so at such an appropriate venue as the master of swingMost people don’t get an end named after them at a sports ground. Those that do usually have to wait until they’ve finished playing. Poor Fred Trueman was long dead before Headingley belatedly got round to honouring him with an enclosure. But most people aren’t Jimmy Anderson.It was from his very own James Anderson End that he took his 1,000th first-class wicket on Monday afternoon. And his 996th, 997th, 998th, 999th, 1,001st and 1,002nd wickets in an exhibition spell of swing and seam bowling: deadly crotchet after deadly crotchet. Not a note wasted. Seven Kent wickets in...