Age remains merely a number for Jimmy Anderson who, despite having turned 34 on Saturday, claims to retain a hunger to improve his skills coupled with the experience of a gnarled old defender in football.
Anderson, England’s record Test wicket-taker, missed the first Test with Pakistan at Lord’s because of a stress fracture to his right shoulder – a call that caused all manner of selection-based angst – but returned for the win at Old Trafford last week that sees the series level going into Wednesday’s third encounter at Edgbaston.
While he concedes he was down on pace in Manchester, hovering around the 80mph mark because of what he has diagnosed as simple rustiness, Anderson still picked up four wickets in the 330-run victory to see him move past Glenn McGrath as the leading seamer in home conditions with 291 Test victims.
McGrath, the former Australian fast bowler, played international cricket until the age of 37, finishing up with 563 Test wickets, and now Anderson, who sits 105 behind, sees no reason why he too cannot extend his career provided he stays fit. Pace, he insists, is not everything.
“I didn’t feel like my speeds were where they could be at Old Trafford,” said Anderson, after conceding the decision to leave him out at Lord’s was probably wise. “I felt a bit like Matthew Hoggard at the end of his career when he slowed down a bit but his control was pretty good.
“But with the skills I’ve got I can do a job even if my speeds did drop. I think with experience you can stay one step ahead maybe in your head. It is like an old defender in football who might not have the pace of a quick striker but he’s two steps ahead of him upstairs.
“The way I feel at the moment, mentally I’ve still got a hunger to play the game and a hunger to take wickets and help my team win matches. As long as I’ve got that hunger, I’m going to keep working, keep improving and keep working on my fitness and if I get to 37 then great. I just try to concentrate on staying fit for the next game.”
Staying fit has become something of an emerging issue for Anderson, who had enjoyed a relatively injury-free career up until the third Ashes Test on this ground last summer when, after claiming six Australian wickets, he missed the rest of the series when a side strain flared up during the second.
Since then he has missed the first Test in South Africa over the winter because of a calf strain, before the recent shoulder injury that struck at the end of the 2-0 win over Sri Lanka at the start of the summer. Anderson, who claimed 21 wickets in that series to take him briefly to the top of the world rankings, remains unconcerned by this run however.
He said: “I think it is just one of those things. I had one big injury when I was 22, 23 – a stress fracture – but apart from that I’ve been very fortunate with injuries. It’s part of a sportsman’s career is you’re going to get injured. Sometimes they come in batches.”
If the crown of “leading seam bowler at home” is a slightly contrived statistic, then the wicket that nudged Anderson past McGrath’s 289 – getting Shan Masood to edge to first slip on seven – could yet prove significant going into the Edgbaston Test. It was the sixth time in six innings Anderson has claimed the left-handed opener’s wicket and while the bowler claims he was unaware of this apparent stranglehold, it could see Pakistan make a change at the top of their order this week.
Their head coach, Mickey Arthur, sought to explain the sequence as a by-product of opening batsman facing opening bowler, citing the example of Michael Atherton being removed a record 19 times by McGrath back in the day, but the form of Masood, despite making 67 in the tour match with Worcestershire over the weekend, is clearly a concern for the tourists.
Arthur said: “It has been a worry. The thing I’ve said to our batsman is about the trend of dismissal. Batsmen are going to get out but when there is a trend that develops, that’s when it is concerning for us as support staff. And clearly a trend has developed. We’re very clear on what we’re going to do this Test but it’s not for public consumption. But we’ve given that position some serious thought.”
One option for Pakistan, should Masood be stood down, would be to promote No3 Azhar Ali to open – as occurred during the UAE series – and bring either Iftikar Ahmed or Mohammad Rizwan into the middle order. Both, however, are uncapped at Test level.
