Two of England’s finest fast bowlers are casualties of a red-ball reset that straddles the line between bravery and stupidity
It’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 about to happen to you. He also said Joe Root had only just told him he wanted him to stay on. And he would have too, through the West Indies tour, into the English summer and beyond.
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