64 1GM Thursday August 6 2020 | the times
SportEngland v Pakistan: First Test
One of the hallmarks of James
Anderson’s years of mastery as an
international bowler has been the sense
of control. As a youngster, he fretted
about what he would do if the ball did
not swing, but in maturity he has come
to believe that he is good enough to
command an automatic place in the
England side and good enough that if
the ball does not provide much help, he
still has the skill to keep down the runs.
Yesterday was a bad day for
Anderson, 38, and it was so because he
did not look like a man in control.
Perhaps he had been rattled by the
possibility of being left out of the XI.
Had Ben Stokes been ruled fit to bowl,
the expectation was that a seamer
would be dropped and Anderson,
reputation notwithstanding, appeared
the likeliest choice.
Rather conveniently perhaps, it was
decided that Stokes needed more time
to get over his thigh strain and could
not be entrusted with the fourth
seamer’s role.
Anderson had said before the final
Test against West Indies that he
understood he was at a stage of his
career when, if he wanted to get
through to the next tour to Australia in
2021-22, he would have to sit out some
games if only to manage his body.
Anderson
off-key with
his place in
team at risk
Simon Wildede
Joe Root, the captain.
Even though he went
past the bat in his open-
ing burst, he tended to
overpitch and in neither
spell were his lines quite
right. Nasser Hussain on
Sky described England’s
bowling in the hour after
lunch as “pants”.
Chris Silverwood, the
England head coach,
said of Anderson’s day:
“He was struggling for a
bit of rhythm but it hap-
pens and as I said to him,
the good thing is you’re
only one ball away from
finding it again.”Perhaps Anderson
thought that Shan
Masood would hand
him his wicket on a
plate.
After all, he had
dismissed him in all six
innings in which they had
faced each other before for
a total of only 15 runs. But
Shan is a changed player,
clearly more disci-
plined, and he was in no
mood at all to roll over.
In each of his three
overs after lunch,
Anderson was dispatched
for fours by the sublime
Babar Azam, the third of themStokes may be fit to bowl
Chris Silverwood, the England head
coach, has said that Ben Stokes may
be fit to bowl at some point during
the Test (Elizabeth Ammon writes).
England have picked four
seamers, as they did in the last
Test when Stokes was ruled unfit
for any bowling. “He might get
some overs,” Silverwood, 45,
said. “We weren’t 100 per cent
confident he could play the
fourth seamer role so we
went with an unchanged
team and I don’t want to put
any pressure on him to have
to turn his arm over if he isn’t
quite right. We have to look
after him.”Anderson was below
par with the ball, left, as
Woakes posed more
problems, dismissing
Azhar Ali, main“I can deal with [being
rested] a bit better now than
a few years ago,” he said.
However yesterday
would not have been a case
of being rested, but left out
on merit. He may have
been aware that he had
dodged a bullet.
Whatever the reason,
this was not a good day
to be off-key because
England desperately
needed to kick their
habit of starting a
series poorly.
They re-
quired all
their bowlersto be on the money, yet their
attack leader was nowhere near
it. England had a middling first
hour and a poor third one — and
went without a wicket in both —
and these passages of play were
opened up by Anderson from
one end and Stuart Broad from
the other.
Anderson bowled five overs
in the morning and three in the
afternoon before frustration
got the better of both him and5
Wickets Anderson has
taken so far this summer —
three in the first Test
against West Indies and
two in the third19.09
Anderson’s average
against Pakistan is
his lowest against any
Test team. He has taken
63 wickets in
16 Tests