If James Anderson has a field day at Lord’s in the first Test against Pakistan, he will become only the second bowler ever to take 100 Test wickets at a single ground. The last time Anderson bowled there, last September, he took nine West Indian wickets: one better against Pakistan and he will join Muttiah Muralitharan, who took 100 wickets at each of Sri Lanka’s three main grounds.
It would make yet another distinguished feat for Anderson, who has soared to fifth in the all-time list of Test wicket-takers on 531. He was the only one of England’s bowlers, pace or spin, who did not have a bad winter. The one constant was Anderson’s accuracy, and persistence, as he took 17 wickets at 27 each in the Ashes and eight more at 25 in New Zealand.
But the medals Anderson continues to accumulate - and if he has a summer like last year he will overtake Glenn McGrath’s 563 to become the leading Test wicket-taker among pace bowlers of all time - should not be allowed to obscure the wider picture. England failed to dismiss the opposition twice in any of their seven Tests last winter and therefore to win, while their over-dependence on the 35 year-old Anderson and the 31 year-old Stuart Broad is ever more unhealthy.
Whereas the selection of England’s batting line-up for the first Test against Pakistan was justifiably hailed as “bold and imaginative”, the choice of England’s pace attack by the new selection panel was the opposite - because they omitted Jake Ball, the leading wicket-taker in division one, and a highly-skilled pace bowler whose time never seems to come.
Ben Stokes did not take a wicket in the ten Test overs which the legal process and his knee injury permitted last winter. Chris Woakes ran a long way in England’s cause, cheerfully and indefatigably, to end up with ten Test wickets that cost more than 60 runs each. More than any other individual in England’s Test side, Woakes illustrates the reason for the successes at home and the failures abroad: 42 wickets at 24 in England, 18 at 61 away.
Largely for this reason, Mark Wood was called back from the IPL, where he had bowled four very expensive overs for Chennai Super Kings, to get some red-ball practice for Durham, and he obliged with his best innings figures, six for 46, in division two against Derbyshire. Against Pakistan, England need a bowler of extra pace who can get the ball into the tourists’ ribs, because circumstances have confined most of their cricket experience to Pakistan and the UAE where batsman are seldom forced to play off the back foot; so Wood, if he is match-fit, can be expected to be England’s third seamer ahead of Woakes.
The best feature about England’s pace bowling last winter was that finally, in the second and last Test against New Zealand, Joe Root got his message across: to pitch the ball further up, especially when new. Root in Christchurch came out from second slip where he had spent his captaincy hitherto, and switched to mid-off, where he could communicate with his bowlers - and Broad, above all, responded. No more of the back-of-a-length, economical, face-saving respectability which prevailed in Australia.
Broad was transformed. A new lease of life, which he sorely needed after the Ashes when he looked to be close to his retirement date. He took six for 54, and eight wickets in all, in the second Test against New Zealand but, for want of more of the same, England yet again could not bowl their opponents out.
Overhead conditions are likely to be decisive this week: whether a team are bowling under cloud or in sunshine. Pakistan have a fine record at Lord’s over the last generation: they have won four of their last eight Tests, including the last one, and lost only two. The surface is usually dry and the bounce nothing steep - as close as they are going to find in England to the pitches of Pakistan and the UAE.
Pakistan won at Lord’s in 2016 by selecting three left-arm pace bowlers and a wrist-spinner: what a beastly trick, to play the two types of bowler England cannot produce! They also won because their captain Misbah ul-Haq produced a match-winning century, immortalised by his press-ups, while their other veteran Younus Khan made a double-century at the Oval which levelled the series at 2-2 and took Pakistan, briefly, to the top of the ICC Test rankings..
Neither Pakistan’s batting nor bowling is as good as it was then; they are down to number seven and have played only three Tests in the last year. Mohammad Amir, their leading pace bowler, suffered knee trouble during the Test in Ireland last week; Mohammed Abbas swings on a full length both ways, which will trouble England, but if the ball is not swinging they have no tall fast bowler to pitch a shorter length; and no Yasir Shah, who took ten wickets last time, as he has a long-term groin strain.
Pakistan have a fine young wrist-spinner in Shadab Khan. When England seek to play an ace in Jos Buttler as a specialist batsman at number seven, playing with the freedom of an old-fashioned amateur, Pakistan have the means to trump it by making Buttler start against Shadab. Even so, England will be going backwards if they do not win this series 2-0.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket...eliance-james-anderson-stuart-broad-must-win/
his work ethic and attitude have been first class. He should make his way back eventually, if you're Joe Root you'd be silly not to want such an option available and some are crying scapegoat but I don't believe that to be true, he's a very popular guy in the dressing room.
