Swing state Masterful Anderson leaves India in ruins at Lord’s

England bowlers make most of damp conditions Tourists paying for only picking five batsmen

A Test between England and Australia at Lord’s is the fixture of all cricket fixtures, and though India have risen to become the foremost power in the sport and top of the Test rankings, this match is not going to alter the traditional order of priorities. The balance between bat and ball has been too lopsided.

England dismissed India for only 107 on a pitch that was damp after Thursday’s washout and under skies that were leaden when not unloading.

James Anderson, at 36, is not only older than he used to be but fuller, not of girth, but of length, and so he maximised the conditions. Such was Anderson’ s master craftsman ship it was almost more remarkable that he conceded 20 runs than that he took five wickets, while swelling his Test swag to 549. Had Anderson been bowling throughout at both ends, India would have been dismissed for less than 42, their lowest-ever total which was made at Lord’s in similar conditions in 1974.

But it was rather too straightforward to be fully satisfying, although the crowd would no doubt have exulted if it had been an Ashes Test. In county cricket, the visiting side would have exerted their right to bowl first every time. As there had to be a toss, Joe Root won it, and if rain stays away on the last three days, the match with it.

Top models hanker for the curves that Anderson and Chris Woakes achieved with their outswinger, Sam Curran, too, with his inswinger. Not only was the swing more extreme than at Edgbaston in the first Specsavers Test, but the seam movement was occasionally such, when the ball bit into the damp turf, that it could have been one of Adil Rashid’s leg-breaks souped up to mid-80s mph.

What if the same practice – of the visiting side bowling first if they fancy – had been introduced to Test cricket? After 49 years of service at Lord’s, the groundsman Mick Hunt would surely have lowered his mower-blades as far as possible before the start, but the ball would still have swung lavishly: the difference between 107 and 150 all out?

Anderson was England’s most successful bowler for two reasons, one being that he is the most skilful swing bowler England have had, the second that the slip fielders did not miss any chances off his bowling. They would not have dared. In all England dropped three slip catches, with Jos Buttler missing two in his new position of second slip and Root one at fourth slip, but the sufferers were wisely chosen: twice it was Woakes, who can be guaranteed to smile ruefully, and once Stuart Broad, beginning to bask in his role as the bowler who has had most chances dropped off him in recent Test cricket.

No bowler has taken 100 Test wickets on a single ground except Muttiah Muralitharan who bowled all day wherever Sri Lanka played, so that he did it at Galle, Kandy and Colombo’s main Test ground, Sinhalese Sports Club.

But Anderson now has 99 wickets at Lord’s, not that it is his fa-

vourite Test ground – everywhere in England is, except the Oval.

Anderson took two wickets for 18 in his first spell from the pavilion end, three for only two runs in his second from the Nursery. For dex- terity the comparison would have to be with a fishmonger long in the tooth yet still eagle of eye, taking one plaice after another and filleting it on his slab with the minimum of effort and waste. In his last two

Tests in India, at Mohali and Mumbai, Anderson had not taken a single wicket. A lesser bowler might have taken that as a cue to retire, or go back to county cricket, but Anderson bided his time for this tour.

It was much as he had expected too: India’s batsmen, confronted for a change with seam-and-swing movement, have been rolled over for ever-diminishing totals, through either going too hard at the ball outside off stump, or beaten between bat and pad, or playing across the line of outswingers, as in the case of Murali Vijay and Virat Kohli here, the captain less so.

While Anderson took five wickets, Woakes took two, Broad, Curran and Kohli one each. A fishmonger would have particularly admired the run-out of Cheteshwar Pujara because Kohli did him like a kipper. Kohli had called Pujara for a quick single to get off the mark, but when Pujara tried a single for exactly the same push, Kohli came halfway then sent him back.

England’s four pace bowlers were not only blessed by conditions: they had half-an-hour of bowling in the morning, and two overs after lunch, so they were raring to go in the final session when it began at 5.10pm. And India chose only five batsmen again, preferring a second spinner in Kuldeep Yadav to a sixth batsman or fourth seamer.

Anderson is 14 wickets from equalling Glenn Mcgrath’s world record of the most Test wickets by a pace bowler, 563. Perhaps as significant to him is that he has lowered his Test average below 27 for the first time since his early days, when he ran through Zimbabwe in his debut year of 2003.

All hail the king of swing!