Eng vs Ind: James Anderson gets better with age

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England´s James Anderson (C) celebrates taking the wicket of India´s captain Virat Kohli with England´s Rory Burns (R) on the first day of the third cricket Test match between England and India at Headingley cricket ground in Leeds, northern England, on August 25, 2021. — AFP/File
England´s James Anderson (C) celebrates taking the wicket of India´s captain Virat Kohli with England´s Rory Burns (R) on the first day of the third cricket Test match between England and India at Headingley cricket ground in Leeds, northern England, on August 25, 2021. — AFP/File

Two batsmen born 15 years apart, both era-defining for India, both pushed to their absolute limits by the same fast-bowler. That is the longevity of James Anderson.

Anderson continued his nine-year Test battle against India captain Virat Kohli on Wednesday at Headingley, and for the seventh time, the Englishman came out on top.

With that, he equalled Australia’s Nathan Lyon as the bowler to have dismissed Kohli the most times in Test cricket. Those seven dismissals have come across 23 Tests, with six at home and one in England. Five of the seven have come with Kohli yet to reach double figures.

Bowlers who have dismissed Kohli the most in Tests

Bowler Dismissals Matches
James Anderson 7 23
Nathan Lyon 7 18
Stuart Broad 5 18
Moeen Ali 5 15
Ben Stokes 5 15

And just as he has the record for the most Test dismissals of Kohli, he boasts the same claim against Tendulkar. Test cricket’s greatest ever run-scorer fell to Anderson nine times across 14 matches, compared to eight times across 19 matches against Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan.

Anderson was only 23 the first time he dismissed Tendulkar, drawing an outside edge from the Little Master in Mumbai in 2006. He was 30 when he first dismissed Kohli at Kolkata and a week older when he got the better of Tendulkar for the final time.

He is 39 years old now. That is 16 years of getting the better of some of the best the game has ever seen. Of course, it hasn’t all been one-way traffic in that time – who could forget Kohli’s 2016 and 2018 campaigns against England or Tendulkar's unbeaten Chennai ton - but what the two records point towards is one of the most endurable and skilled bowlers in cricket history.

Bowler Dismissals Matches
James Anderson 9 14
Muttiah Muralitharan 8 19
Glenn McGrath 6 9
Jason Gillespie 6 8
Daniel Vettori 5 15

Just as he drew the edge from Tendulkar in 2006, Anderson did the same against Kohli at Headingley on Wednesday as he collected figures of 3/6 from eight overs. It was a masterclass from the veteran quick, who had earlier removed both KL Rahul (0) and Cheteshwar Pujara (1) via edges to the keeper.

“We’ve had some great battles over the years,” Anderson said of his dismissal of Kohli. “He’s a fantastic player and someone you want to keep quiet as a team, especially in a five-match series.

“We’ve just got to try to keep doing that, try and keep him quiet as often as we can because we know that if he gets going it could be a long series for us.”

By the time Anderson first faced Tendulkar he was three years into his Test career. To that point, it had actually been quite a modest career, with 35 wickets to his name at 36.40. By the end of 2009, his tally had climbed to 145 and his average improved to 34.89, but few could have predicted that more than a decade on he would be the greatest Test wicket-taker in fast-bowling history playing arguably as well as he ever has.

From 2010 onwards, Anderson has been the definition of excellence in Test cricket, snaring 481 wickets at 23.87 in that period by stumps on day one at Headingly. Among the top 10 Test wicket-takers in that time, only Dale Steyn (267 at 22.29) boasts a better average.

Most Test wickets since 2010

Bowler Wickets Average
James Anderson 481 23.87
Stuart Broad 451 26.78
Ravichandran Ashwin 413 24.56
Nathan Lyon 399 32.12
Rangana Herath 363 26.41

The scary thing for opposition teams everywhere is that Anderson is showing few signs of letting up. He averaged 20.47 across six Tests in 2020 and has averaged 19.51 across nine in 2021.

This year has seen him climb past Anil Kumble to third on the all-time wicket-takers list with 629 at 26.46. Shane Warne and his 708 are still a fair distance away but only the brave or foolish would rule him out from getting there.