FAST TRACK GIANTS REACH NEW HEIGHTS Anderson and Broad pass 1,000 Test wickets
THE year 2005 will always hold a special place in English cricket history. Not because the Ashes were regained for the first time in 26 years but because it was the year James Anderson first met Stuart Broad.
It was as county opponents for Lancashire and Leicestershire and first blood went to Anderson, who got Broad out for seven but then lost the match by just four runs.
The two men who would go on to become giants of the game and stand atop the English bowling charts at No1 and No2 didn’t even speak to each other 14 years ago, but last week the great mates took their combined Test wicket tally past 1,000.
It is a mind-boggling number that reflects not only the quality of their bowling skills and the longevity of their careers, but something deeper than that.
It is a tangible recognition of the hours of sacrifice made by both men to their craft, the dedication behind the scenes and away from the cameras – in the gym, in the nets and out in the middle when there isn’t a batsman to be seen, just a coach with a baseball mitt.
And yet there was a tinge of sadness perhaps, or even controversy, that despite more than 11 years at the top together the moment of that 1,000th wicket came about when one of them wasn’t even playing.
Left out of the opening Test against the West Indies, Broad could only tweet: “Jimmy walked off the field and shook my hand.
1,000 Test Match wickets between us for England and a lot of fun along the way.”
It was understandable in Sri Lanka where a trio of spinners dominated the bowling workload, but in
Barbados it was absurd that Joe Root left Broad on the sidelines on a pitch that would surely have suited him.
The call swiftly came here in Antigua for Broad to return to the side and he has been by far England’s most threatening man with ball in hand and could have taken many more than the three wickets he managed on day two. And when Broad took two scalps in one over it was easy to think back to any one of those whirlwind spells that made him indispensable to previous skippers Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook at places like The Oval, The Wanderers, Trent Bridge and Wellington.
“I was gutted to miss out in Barbados,” said Broad. “Selection didn’t go my way and I didn’t have too much to complain about, but now I’m back I feel good about my new run-up, I feel balanced at the crease which is good for me at the start of what I think could be a big year for me.”
And what of the future?
Broad, 32, has shown in
Antigua that he is still a massive threat at the highest level, while the 36-year-old Anderson, fresh from his 27th five-wicket haul, has got his eyes on playing until he is 40 which should take their total much higher.