by It could be the best £4.50 James Anderson has ever spent. He has used the last six months to find out why his high standards fell in last summer’s Ashes and decided, at the age of 41, to rework his preparation.
To help with this, Anderson has used a public running track next to Manchester City’s Etihad stadium, paying his fee at the door to do so like other runners, before working on speed drills which he believes will help him get closer to the crease. .
Anderson took five wickets in four Tests and averaged 85 against Australia, and rarely looked threatening. A combination of injuries early in the series combined with some useless surfaces (“Kryptonite,” he called them in his sport telegraph column) got him off to a slow start and he never really recovered. With Stuart Broad exiting the big stage in grand style, naturally many thought Anderson should do the same, but he was determined to carry on, believing it was a one-off problem.
“I don’t think he bowled badly in The Ashes, but he wasn’t threatening”
He has not played competitively since the Oval Ashes Test and did not pick up the ball again until October. He has now returned refreshed and ready to go to India for five Tests, where conditions will be even tougher for the seamers than anything they have faced in the Ashes when the series begins in Hyderabad on January 25. To help himself, Anderson has decided that after 183 Tests, 690 wickets and more than 20 years in international cricket, he needs to reshape the most fundamental aspect of a bowler’s technique: preparation. The rest of us may not notice a noticeable change, but to him it feels different.
“I have tried to look at the Ashes honestly. I don’t think I played badly, but at the same time I didn’t feel threatening either,” he says. sport telegraph. “The ball didn’t swing. The pitches weren’t particularly suitable for me, but taking wickets when conditions don’t favor me is something I’ve prided myself on in the past. India is a place where the conditions won’t favor seamers, but I’ve been there before and had success, so I’m trying to put all that together and make sure I’m in a really good place.
“My preparation is the main thing, I just try to make sure it is better. One thing that wasn’t good was my acceleration speed. I can’t rely on that quick movement at the crease that I’ve had over the years, so I’ve been working on my momentum in my running to gain speed that way. It seems to be working very well, the ball comes out very well and now I just need to transfer it outdoors.
“Something that has worked well for me is to mix up the training, making sure not to do the same thing over and over again. Things like working on running technique and speed, I have to do a little more than most people who get to my age. I have to cover all the bases to make sure that when I get to India I am in a good place.”
‘I don’t see why it should end just because of my age’
Anderson won’t feel Broad’s absence much, because the retirement was a gradual elimination. Broad did not travel to Pakistan last winter and the two rotated in recent years. However, he put Anderson’s future in the spotlight, and he was a little nervous about whether they would give him another center contract. He offered and accepted a one-year contract.
“It sounds brutal, but you have to keep going,” he says of Broad. “No thoughts about finishing have crossed my mind. A lot of people come up to me to congratulate me on a great race, but I still have to explain that it was Stuart, not me.
“I still feel like I have a lot to offer this team. I wouldn’t still be doing what I’m doing if I didn’t feel that way. I still feel like I have the skills to win cricket matches in England, so as long as I feel that way, I don’t see why it should end just because of my age. In the training I’ve done this winter, I feel like age is just a number. Cricket is a numbers game and people always look at my age when it appears on the screen when I come in to bowl, but for me it’s irrelevant. That’s how you feel as a cricketer and I know I can still dive into the field and make a change with the ball like I have for the last 20 years.
“I feel like the last 5 or 6 years have been the best of my career. Although The Ashes didn’t go as well as I wanted, there have been many series where I haven’t played well throughout my career and it’s just a matter of working hard to make sure that doesn’t happen again. “
“We could even open with two spinners in India”
Indian fields will challenge the Bazballers. Taking 20 wickets has been one of the main drivers of the Ben Stokes era, his fielding setup and his innovative tactics will be tested if the pitches are flat. If there is a prodigious spin that could well help England, who will see that it is a leveler for their spinners? The team’s four closers (Anderson, Mark Wood, Ollie Robinson and Gus Atkinson) will rotate.
Wood and Atkinson bring striking pace, Robinson and Anderson the reverse swing skills that could be crucial. It feels like they could be a closing light in the team, with Stokes unable to bowl and three of the four aging or injury prone. The other, Atkinson, is a mystery. There is no specialist bowling coach on this tour, and Brendon McCullum has often said why the team needs one when they have Anderson in the dressing room to pass on his experience.
“That has been my role in the recent past; anyway, taking on that mentor role as a senior figure. I have a duty to convey information to people. We have players who have never bowled in India before, so it will be a different challenge for them. We have to help where we can.
“There are only four seamers, so we don’t expect to do a lot of sewing. It’s just a slightly different role. You may not play the overs you do in England, but they are still important. You probably put more importance on the spells you cast. These are the things we will pass on to the boys. The reverse swing will play an important role. There may be times when we do not open with a seamer. We could open with two spinners. Then your role changes a lot, you reach the third or fourth change with the established hitters. That is the challenge of playing in India.”
Anderson’s record for India is good: 39 wickets at 29. He bowled a superb spell of reverse swing to help win the first Test on the last tour, but became redundant on the spinners that India then prepared. This will be a difficult tour, seven weeks in India playing in some of the less fashionable venues and little preparation, with England choosing a week in Abu Dhabi rather than warm-ups against local opposition. A modern trend that will not change.
“I am more excited about this tour than the previous tours to India. In the past it has been real hard work and we have tried to overcome it,” he says. “We will look to play the same way as the last two years, but we will be smart about it. Something we’ve tried to progress on is playing that aggressive style but learning what works in different conditions. Nobody put us at a disadvantage to win 3-0 in Pakistan and that gives us a lot of confidence. Conditions could be similar, not identical, but slow for closers and we have to be smart.”
