James Anderson by CricketArchive Staff Reporter

---

Player:

JM Anderson

---

DateLine: 3rd May 2009

 

James Anderson is, without a doubt, England's pace spearhead. However, his average and inconsistent Test and ODI record does not do justice to the talent. With an explosive side-on action, Anderson extracts outswing at very good pace of around an average of 90 miles/hour and has an armoury containing a late swinging yorker, an inswinger and a (tooth) cracking bouncer. Anderson made his ODI debut due to Andy Caddick’s injury and joined up the team touring Australia in 2002. With the 2003 World Cup round the corner, he produced some great spells to get selected for the championships. Banking on some good ODI performances, he was selected for the opening Test of the new season against Zimbabwe, where he made an instant impression, taking his first five wicket haul. Since then, he has been a shadow of his good bowling self, with some mediocre performances against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Then injuries started to take its toll on the 6'2" bowler. His lower back became too fragile and broke down with constant regularity and even sometime on tours. As a result, he was reduced to being just a passenger most of the time, if at all fit and chosen for the side. He did make a return in 2006 against India, playing a good role in the victory at Mumbai, but broke down again immediately after that. Lack of match fitness forced him out of the Ashes in Australia later that year and he played through the 2007 World Cup with a broken finger. Anderson has picked up 117 wickets in 35 Tests at an average of 35.23 and a very average strike rate of 60. He has been a shade better in the ODI's though scalping 136 wickets in 106 matches at 30.93 per wicket. He and Stuart Broad spearheaded a young England attack in place of the out-of-form Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard for the second Test of England's series against New Zealand in the winter of 2008, and it appeared to inspire him. His 5 for 73 helped England square the series, and though his old waywardness returned with depressing inevitability in the final Test, he was back among the wickets three games later against the Kiwis at Trent Bridge, when his hostile full-pitched late swing accounted for each of the first six wickets to fall. He took 11 wickets in the last Test series against West Indies in the Caribbean earlier this year.