The fifth ball after tea on the third day in sizzling Sydney was in itself nothing remarkable. Jimmy Anderson wound up as he had done 29,544 times before in Test cricket, fired the ropey old Kookaburra down to Shaun Marsh from around the wicket, looked up from his familiar head-dipping action to see it thud into the middle of the left-hander’s crisp defensive shot.
Statistically, however, it marked new ground for Anderson. Never before has he sent down so many deliveries in a Test series. The current Ashes campaign has surpassed his efforts in 2010-11 for the heaviest workload of his career – 213.2 overs when Marsh offered his riposte – at a time when he is into his 36th year and has recently become the most-capped seamer.
While he has been the thriftiest bowler on either side– his skills are so honed now there is minimal dross, with an economy of 2.12 runs per over testament to this fact – it has been a hard slog for his 17 wickets at 27 runs apiece. Though Anderson did not have his most penetrative day in an England shirt given the soaring temperatures and an unresponsive pitch, he remains a quality asset that Joe Root hopes will be at his disposal for a little while yet.
Anderson remains supremely fit and there is at least one last mountain he will likely climb. When he shook hands with Glenn McGrath at the start of Sydney’s pink day – the excellent breast cancer charity event in memory of the former Australian fast-bowler’s first wife, Jane – there may even have been a word exchanged about title of the all-time leading Test seamer. Anderson, as it stands, sits 40 short of McGrath’s 563 victims.
Whether he pushes towards and past this landmark, England are in Anderson bonus time right now. A recent switch of agent to the more showbiz-inclined M&C Saatchi suggests thoughts are moving beyond cricket and there are question marks over the longevity of Stuart Broad too. Though four years younger, the latter has struggled for impact bar a flickering of the flame in Melbourne. He will bemoan the surfaces but this is the game away from home.
Chris Silverwood, the new England fast bowling coach who starts his job this month, has an unenviable task given the apparent lack of established resources that will be at his disposal when these two greats eventually make way. The levels of experience will fall off a cliff, something that Tom Curran, for all his worthy efforts here, is demonstrating right now.
Silverwood’s job is not so much to nurture seam bowlers from the soil either, but rather finesse the best produced. It is here where there must also be concerns, given the direction of travel for English cricket.
The England and Wales Cricket Board talk a good game about finding pace bowlers for future red-ball campaigns but it is in their actions that they should be judged. First-class domestic cricket is, in effect, a spring/autumn sport.
With a new Twenty20 tournament being plopped into the height of it in two years’ time just days after the existing T20 Blast, will the next generation be drawn to the prospect of sending down 200-plus overs in a Test series when there is a lighter and less scrutinised workload on offer?
After all, two short-form competitions will mean up to 28 Twenty20s games for those good enough to play in both. Sure, Test central contracts are lucrative and will no doubt bulge when the new broadcast riches are divvied up. But it is the process of getting to that level that will become the less appealing career path, not least for the physically demanding discipline of fast bowling.
England have spent four years masking the retirement of Graeme Swann through Moeen Ali and the battery of seamers and a new hope could be finally emerging in the spin department through the raw yet promising Mason Crane. But when the big two finally draw stumps – and chastening days like this will only hasten this – it is hard not to worry about what will follow.
