James Anderson has declared England’s safest path to recovery in the Edgbaston Test against India will be to “attack” the visiting bowlers. Finding themselves in a deep hole at 84/5 in response to India’s 416 all-out, the pacer believes England need to consider the aggressive route as their most likely road to resurrection.
Speaking to the press after a difficult Day 2 where rain and the incisive Indian bowlers combined to trigger the downfall for half of the England batting unit, the 39-year-old didn’t look overly concerned. England’s greatest ever fast-bowler instead took heart from the multiple strong comebacks that the hosts have managed at the start of the summer.
England found themselves chasing nearly 300 runs in each of the three Tests against New Zealand and ended up winning all towards a highly encouraging 3-0 series whitewash.
Their method to attack the opposition at all stages, even when in strife, gave birth to the term ‘Baz Ball’ outside among fans and the media, coined after the nickname of their Test match head coach Brendon McCullum.
Anderson said a similar approach to the rest of this India Test match – a critical fifth one of the series played for the Pataudi Trophy – would bear his team the desired results. Thus, rather than feeling bogged down at the crease, the experienced seamer advised his teammates to come out all guns blazing on Day 3.
“The way we’ve got out of sticky situations is trying to put pressure back on the opposition. I’ve got a fair feeling our best line of defence tomorrow will be attack. Our batters are naturally aggressive. We want to score and move the game forward,”
Anderson was quoted as saying by BBC Sport.
England have got perhaps the right duo to uphold Anderson’s words in the middle, with skipper Ben Stokes arriving late at No.7 and joining a rampaging Jonny Bairstow towards the end.
Bairstow and Stokes had pulled off one of the most amazing counterattacks seen in recent history on the final day of the Trent Bridge Test versus the Black Caps. While Bairstow smashed a ton, Stokes finished unbeaten with a half-century towards a series-sealing win.
Anderson, however, chose not to put the onus of taking the game back to India entirely on those two and urged the rest of the batters, including himself, to chip in and keep Indian bowlers on the park for as long as possible.
“It’s not just those two, we’ve all got a job to do down the bottom of the order. We’ve got to try to work our way back in and put some pressure back on them. We’re up against it, but we’ve been in this position before this summer.”
“We’ve got guys in the dressing room who need to fight to get us back into this game, and that’s what we’ve got to do,”
Anderson said.
Anderson also came out in support of his illustrious new-ball partner Stuart Broad who had another unwanted record built against him by an Indian batter after tourists’ stand-in skipper Jasprit Bumrah smashed him for a 35-run over.
The over, featuring a four-wides and a six off a no-ball, saw Broad getting belted towards the on-side as he perhaps let his ego come in the way of the smarts and experience of bowling at the tailender.
Anderson said Broad is too good to let such an over “affect“ him for the rest of the Test match. He added that his teammate was a touch “unlucky“ given that Bumrah got a couple of top-edges for boundaries behind square on the on-side.
