Cricket, lovely cricket (Part 1)

501 wasn’t a bad ball either.

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Fantastic effort from Anderson on his 500th wicket.
it says a lot for his consistency and fitness that he is the only English bowler to have achieved this landmark and is still bowling as well as ever.
He could well become the most successful quick bowler of all time before he finishes his test career.

The deciding test is delicately poised and I think the result will depend on the weather now. Cloud cover expected for tomorrow, so I would be surprised if WI get more than 250 in the second innings.

My guess is England to win by 4 or 5 wickets tomorrow chasing 180 or so.

DON’T put any money on that :grin:

I really hope the up-coming Ashes tour doesn"t kill him off. Players tend to retire after those.
I agree with you though, at the moment his skills seem undiminished and he is clearly very fit. I would love to be able to watch him for a bit longer, he is amazing!

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In interviews he seems to be suggesting another 2 years or so. Fitness dependent, naturally, but I hope he continues until Oz tour here in 2019.

Easily our best ever bowler IMO, the numbers don’t lie. The illustrious company he now keeps in the 500+ club doesn’t flatter him one bit.

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Nice early wicket for him too :sunglasses:

Not flattered in the least and I would argue he is a better athlete than either McGrath or Walsh too. He can field in pretty much any position and rarely drops a catch. Also wonderfully mobile in the outfield with a bullet throw.

A lot of bowlers can swing the ball but controlling it like he does so consistently is unusual. His ability to find just the right line and length when it is really hooping is miraculous really. His nous too in these situations is fantastic. Often I watch him bowl at a new batsman and he’ll show them an inswinger and outswinger early, then once he has them watchful he will hold back either, committing them to play just outside off stump until just the right moment. They know it’s coming but can do nothing about it. He can move the ball off the seam both ways in all conditions too, so the batsman also has to watch for the non-swinging deliveries! To bowl a seaming delivery and a swinging delivery with only subtle variations in his action and wrist position so the batsman can’t pick them and then put all these on a sixpence relentlessly is amazing and he can do it all day if required, 50 overs in a match is fairly usual.

He is a God!

Please excuse gratuitous Jimmy worship post… :grinning:

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No excusing required. Far too many superlatives get chucked about describing good as opposed to great players. In his case the cap fits.

And, once again, he proves his class.

5 for

Sorry

6 for

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Actually 7

Now put him in a box and don’t let him out until the Ashes

In a box and not getting out?

That’s more for a batsman??

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England win and Anderson to the fore! 7-42 today, his best ever and 39 wickets for the test summer, also a personal best. He is still the man. :+1:

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Nice article about Jimmy penned by Graeme Swann here

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Yes, I read that the other day. They are obviously very close.

Nice to see that Jimmy has returned to number 1 in test cricket too.

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Wow, with the disclaimer that I’m not a fan of Jonathan Liew’s writing, this seems to be an especially mean-spirited piece of inverted snobbery.

Too spineless to publish it while he was still broadcasting, too.

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I think that it’s good and right to hit out at unearned privilege, that needs to be removed from society as far as possible.

But to do this via an totally targeted article like that is absolutely inappropriate. It’s just mean. Imagine if the Guardian ran that? Or one of the left wing Facebook feeds.

I haven’t read the article coz reasons but I will really miss Blowers, he had/has massive enthusiasm for the game and added such colour to TMS, which I am unsure can be replaced. The couple of matches that he didn’t commentate on this summer seemed so dry…

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Indeed, the characters are disappearing quickly.

Johnners (sic) went and now Blowers. The replacements may be technically more astute, but at the expense of entertainment in the commentary box. Sad really.

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