Jimmy Anderson is like a comic book hero. With his slicked back hair and his flinty stare, he even looks like he’s sprung straight from the pencil of Roy of the Rovers artist Joe Colquhoun. And like a cricketing version of Melchester Rovers biggest star, year after year, series after series, he has come up with the goods for club and country. Just how long can he keep going?
Restoring order
England went into the first test of the English summer having won just one of their last 17 test matches. Not just that, but with a new captain, a decimated bowling attack and the prospect of facing the newly crowned World Test Champions to boot. Had you consulted a sportsbook online before play got underway, you could have got long odds on an England win, and two days in, despite some early wobbles, New Zealand were in control. England needed some magic, and there was only one place to turn.
Anderson’s bowling partner Stuart Broad lit the blue touchpaper with five typical minutes of madness, but New Zealand keeper Tom Blundell kept his head when all about were losing theirs. He seemed a certainty for a three figure score and to shepherd the tail to a surely unassailable 300 lead. Anderson had other ideas, trapping Blundell LBW for 96 and keeping the target to a tricky but attainable 276.
New England, Old Attack
And so it began. The new England set up looks bold, confident and aggressive under its new captain. But it is grist to the mill for Anderson, who has played under eight different captains in his 170 tests. Anderson turns 40 next month and has already taken possession of all the seam bowling records going.
Anderson believes that England are entering a “really exciting” era under Ben Stokes and new coach Brendan McCullum, and he clearly plans to be part of it. He showed over the first two tests that age has blunted neither his skill nor his guile, and it does not take a genius to work out what he has in mind for a swan song.
One last battle
This summer’s matches against New Zealand and later against South Africa will be treated with all the respect they are due. But nevertheless, every player will have half an eye on the summer of 2023 and the prospect of taking on Australia to regain the Ashes.
Anderson will be no exception in this respect, and will be desperate to face off against the greatest rivals of them all one last time. After all, Jimmy has been involved in three successful Ashes campaigns. None of those have been in recent memory, and there would be no better way for one of the all time great cricketers to end a remarkable career. If anyone can do it, it’s the man from Burnley – and who knows, if he can regain the Ashes with old buddy Stuart Broad by his side, he might even break character and crack a smile.
