James Anderson swings through West Indies to wrap up series for England
Mike Selvey at The Riverside
guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 May 2009 17.58 BST
Andrew Strauss received back the Wisden Trophy, relinquished in Trinidad barely two months ago, shortly after lunch on the final afternoon of the brief series. They probably needed to scrape the frost from it. The ceremony, sensibly held inside, was watched on the big screen by a crowd numbering tens which is more than might have been expected were this not a part of the world where T-shirts constitute winter outerwear.
The wind was as stiff as the brandy that might have been needed to counteract the temperature. Different conditions then, and different circumstances for a West Indies team for whom it must have been bone-chilling purgatory compared with the balmy warmth of the Caribbean.
Resuming the final day on 115 for three, still needing 144 to avoid an innings defeat, they had lost a further five wickets before lunch in adding only 28 runs as, refreshed by a couple of breaks for sharp showers, James Anderson and Tim Bresnan bowled unchanged to the interval.
Precisely three overs after the interval the pair had polished things off, West Indies all out for 176, losing the match by an innings and 83 runs to go with the 10-wicket defeat at Lord's.
West Indies have offered scant competition these past few weeks and only Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who made 47 before succumbing to the brilliant Anderson, offered resistance. But that is not to denigrate England's overall performance which has been first-rate. Tougher days lie ahead but at this stage they have done pretty much all that Andy Flower can have asked of them.
The honours went to Anderson and, to the genuine delight of his team-mates, Bresnan, who, wondering perhaps if he might ever take a Test wicket, ploughed his considerable frame manfully into the wind and managed to do so with the last ball of his 25th over at this level and went on to collect two more, including the final one, to finish with three for 45 and so deprive Anderson of the chance to get a second five-wicket haul in the match.
Anderson, meanwhile, was outstanding. With atmospheric conditions perfect for him and having managed to get a decent shine on the ball, he made it talk so eloquently that it should be signed up immediately for next week's Question Time. He now has complete control of swing both from over the wicket and, more difficult to execute, from around the wicket, where his ability to hoop the ball away from the left-hander brought memories of Bob Massie and, indeed, such was his pace, Mike Procter.
Two deliveries to tail-enders were as articulate as anything. First Jerome Taylor was worked this way and that by hokey-cokey bowling in which he sent the ball in, out, in, out before shaking the off-stump all about, cartwheeling it from the ground as a perfect away-swinger eluded the outside edge. The left-handed Sulieman Benn then received similar treatment from round the wicket, the stump plucked from the turf once more.
To Anderson also went the key wicket of Chanderpaul who, farming the strike now, pushed out to another ball that left him late and edged a straightforward catch to Paul Collingwood, substituting as wicketkeeper for Matt Prior. He held it OK and with unrestrained joy at gaining some tangible recognition of his task as deputy but generally he would be advised not to give up the day job.
With the earlier wicket of Lendl Simmons – one of three catches to go to substitute fielders Scott (of the Antarctic?) Borthwick and Karl Turner – he was to finish with four for 38, giving him match figures of nine for 125, not quite sufficient to top his best of nine for 98 against New Zealand at Trent Bridge last year but good enough for the man of the match award. Ravi Bopara, with centuries at Lord's and here, was man of the series.
The decision to give one end to Bresnan, rather than Stuart Broad or Graham Onions, was a sound as well as humane one. The team have made him extremely welcome (which has not always been the case for newcomers in the past) but for the entire series hitherto he has still been the lone if cheerily willing guest sitting in the kitchen at the party.
All things being equal, he will be down the bowling pecking order when in Cardiff at the start of July England next take the Test match field, tucked in behind his three compatriots here, with additionally Ryan Sidebottom, free now of pain from his achilles tendons, Andrew Flintoff and even Steve Harmison, in the event he should recover from sore shins. But injuries occur and the situation might arise where he is wanted, and at short notice. Now he will not feel intimidated by the step to the next level. The wickets, no matter their provenance or quality, will be a signal to him that he belongs.
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