Anderson heartbreak Paceman ruled out of Ashes
England seamer out as calf tear flares up again Overton in as Denly is moved to open batting
Sir Alastair Cook will always have the last word – not the last laugh, because he and James Anderson have always been best friends – on the subject of grand farewells, after Anderson was ruled out of this Ashes series, having bowled the sum total of four overs.
So there will be no triumphant retirement at the end of this year’s Oval Test, as there was last summer after England had won the series. No standing ovations day after day. No fairy-tale ending. No knighthood. Cook enjoyed it all, and deservedly so; Anderson will not, and undeservedly so, but this is how cricket operates normally.
In Anderson’s absence, and those of Mark Wood and Olly Stone, the Somerset pace bowler Craig Overton has been named in England’s squad of 13 for the fourth Test at Old Trafford. In another change, Jason Roy is expected to drop down to No4, with Joe Denly promoted to open. As Denly has not opened regularly for Kent since 2015, it is another square peg in another round hole; but no solution is obvious.
At the start of this summer Anderson required 25 more wickets to reach 600 in Tests, to become the first pace bowler to go far higher than Everest. It looked so simple then: first, a limber-up against Ireland at Lord’s, where Anderson had already taken more than 100 Test wickets. If Chris Woakes could mop up six wickets in Ireland’s second innings of 38, Anderson would surely have taken 10 in the match.
That would have left only 15 wickets, or three a game, against Australia. You can see it now: a mild afternoon in mid-september, a packed Oval, England 2-1 up and heading towards regaining the Ashes, the crowd roaring “Oh Jimmy, Jimmy” as Anderson takes the new ball… But no, only Cook among England’s finest cricketers will enjoy the grandest of farewells and Anderson will have to stagger on this winter, when there are eight more Tests, if he is to achieve his landmark.
Sedbergh. Sedbergh School. The first time Lancashire had hosted a first-class game there. Not even in Lancashire. Anderson had been nursed during the World Cup, playing the number of championship games that England’s backroom staff thought he needed to come to the boil against Ireland, then Australia – and he tore a muscle in his right calf. A “low-grade muscle tear”: not a severe injury, except for a pace bowler aged 37, and defying time. Back on track, and picked for the opening Ashes Test at Edgbaston, though without having played a game since Sedbergh, Anderson was straight into his groove on the opening morning. Not the fastest bowler but, of modern pace bowlers, the most accurate. He began with a maiden, bowled two more, conceded a single run – and limped off. Another tear in his right calf.
If Australia had wriggled off the hook on the first day at Edgbaston, they would have done it far more slowly if Anderson had been there. He does not possess the elixir to dismiss Steve Smith – Anderson has done it only thrice since 2011 – but then nobody does, except perhaps Jofra Archer and he has only knocked Smith out. In the second Test at Lord’s, between the showers, how useful would he have been? And Headingley on that first morning – when Stuart Broad did not bowl quite full enough, let
alone Ben Stokes, and Woakes must have been tired, and Joe Root needed Archer to drag it all back – what damage might not Anderson have done?
It is not to be: no dream attack of Anderson, Broad and Archer. On day one of the specially arranged game between Lancashire Seconds and Durham, Anderson managed 20 overs. Day two was washed out, then nine more overs on day three – making 29 in the innings – but he had already become “aware of right-calf pain following on from 20 overs he had bowled on Tuesday”, according to an England and Wales Cricket Board statement, “and was withdrawn from the remainder of the game. Further review with the ECB medical team has confirmed that he will be unavailable for the remaining two Specsavers Ashes Tests.” The fourth is at Old Trafford, his home ground, where he has an end named after him. How cruel can cricket be? Immensely. Woakes, though named in the squad of 13, was due for a rest, having played all four Tests this summer and the World Cup. In Anderson’s absence, Sam Curran is the closest to a like-for-like replacement – only Curran needs the ball to swing to be a Test-class bowler, in addition to being a matchwinning lower-order batsman. Hence Overton, who has played three Tests. Old Trafford specialises in reverseswing and so does Overton.
His spirit is such he has top-scored twice for England already. He also has a twin brother called James, but neither can replace the real Jimmy.