‘Fearless’ Poms excite Anderson
SERIES FINALE: ITCHING TO RETURN FOR INDIAN TEST
James Anderson cannot wait to rejoin a “fearless” England team, unlike any he has known in two decades of international cricket, in this week’s long-delayed India series finale.
Today’s match in Birmingham comes just four days after England completed a 3-0 rout of Test world champions New Zealand.
Before that series, England had won just one of 17 Tests. That was against India in Leeds last year.
But India fought back to lead 2-1 only for the deciding encounter to be postponed just a couple of hours before it was due to begin at Manchester’s Old Trafford in September, with the tourists withdrawing due to a Covid-19 scare.
The fifth Test is being staged at Edgbaston instead, with England buoyed by chasing down stiff targets of 277, 299 and 296 against the Black Caps in swashbuckling style under their new red-ball leadership duo of captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum, himself a former New Zealand skipper.
Anderson first played international cricket in 2002. His 651 wickets and 171 Tests are both England records.
Even the 39-year-old swing specialist has been taken aback by how England maintained an exceptional run-rate of 4.54 per over during the New Zealand series.
In-form former captain Joe Root and the rejuvenated Jonny
Bairstow both scored nearly 400 runs apiece, with both Yorkshiremen posting two hundreds each.
Anderson, one of just four survivors in England’s squad from the team that lost the fourth Test against India at Oval last year, aims to return after missing the third Test against New Zealand with a sore left ankle. His replacement Jamie Overton made 97 on Test debut.
“I have never been in a dressing room before when we have chased almost 300 on a pitch that is turning and everyone being so calm, just believing we were going to chase them down,” Anderson, 39, told reporters.
“That for me, after 20 years of playing international cricket, was something I had never seen before.” –