Jimmy Anderson said he would go to bed dreaming of taking Virat Kohli’s wicket as England look to claim the remaining five wickets needed to win a gripping first Test with India.
The fourth morning at Edgbaston is all set for a thriller, with the tourists 84 runs short of their target but Kohli is ominously unbeaten on 43 following his 149 in India’s first innings that has already demonstrated his prowess marshalling the lower order.
Asked if it was now a case of Kohli’s wicket or bust, Anderson replied: “More than likely, yes. We have got to give it everything in the first 15-20 overs, leave nothing out there. You know you can do something special by winning, so we’ll go to bed dreaming about getting Virat first thing.”
Despite Kohli’s dominance across days two and three, Anderson insisted no batsman in world cricket is invincible, pointing to the life handed to the right-hander by Dawid Malan, when he was on 21 in his first innings, as a cause for optimism.
Anderson, the bowler denied on that occasion, said: “I’ve been encouraged the way I’ve bowled to him so far. “We could be in a much different position now.
“But you can’t drop Virat on 21, he’s one of the best in the world, he’ll capitalise and that’s what he did. We’ve spoken about [the catching] because the amount of drops in the last two years have not been up to standard.”
On what has been a gripping 1,000th men’s Test for England, he added: “It’s been really exciting – if not a bit frustrating at times – and especially the way the momentum has shifted. It’s Test cricket at its best. We have a really good chance to win the game if we get early wickets.
“That was a long final session today and towards the end we were getting tired. So if we recover well, come back refreshed, we know it will be 25-30 over max one way or the other so we can have that in our minds, to give it all we can.”
