Anderson steps up Test bid with first wicket of campaign

JIMMY ANDERSON opened his account for the season with the dismissal of Ashes opponent Marcus Harris in Lancashire’s County Championship match against Gloucestershire.

Vying for an England recall for June’s Test series against New Zealand, the 39-year-old produced a lifting delivery from around the wicket to send back the Australian at the start of the visitors’ attempts to salvage a draw, after Lancashire declared with a 304run advantage on the first innings.

Anderson went wicketless on his first day of the season on Thursday, but extracted life out of a pitch on which England prospect Josh Bohannon cruised to a first ever double hundred.

Saqib Mahmood was gifted a second wicket when Chris Dent flashed outside off stump and Gloucestershire were left with only seven wickets intact heading into the final morning when Pakistan’s Hasan Ali, sixwicket hero of the first innings, took James Bracey’s middle stump with a yorker.

At Edgbaston, Essex’s Test player Dan Lawrence held up reigning county champions Warwickshire’s bid for victory, despite being impaired by a hamstring injury, making 44 from 105 balls.

Yorkshire’s Harry Brook continued his fine start to 2022, adding a rapid unbeaten 77 to his first-innings 84 as Northamptonshire were set a notional 499-run target at Wantage Road. George Hill hit 151 not out and Dawid Malan chipped in with 75 in a score of 406 for three declared. Liam Dawson and Ben Brown both hit hundreds off Kent’s wearied attack at Canterbury as Hampshire piled up 652 for six declared and then followed up with three wickets in their victory push.

Australian seamer Peter Siddle took six for 51 for Somerset in a finely poised contest against Surrey at the Kia Oval, where all three results appear possible heading into the final day.

Things were not so evenly balanced in Division Two, however, where three innings victories were wrapped up.

Ben Slater’s undefeated double hundred proved the cornerstone of Nottinghamshire’s success over Durham, Middlesex’s Toby Roland-Jones claimed eight match wickets against Glamorgan and a fine team display helped Worcestershire casually dismantle Sussex.

M ENGLAND’S unrelenting international schedule has opened up the prospect of two teams touring simultaneously for the second winter in a row.

Although arrangements are still to be finalised, it appears there will be some crossover between the end of limited-overs matches in Australia, provisionally dated to finish on November 25, and the warm-up period of a three-Test series in Pakistan.