James Anderson and the art of swing bowling

James Anderson: The new age swing-master

Sitting in front of your television on your sofa, relishing the cool and tranquil weather of England – which is good for many reasons, but especially for one i.e. a long grueling day of Test cricket.

The vision of seeing cricket players in shining white jerseys may not be ‘everyone’s cup of tea’ these days, but it sure means “cricket” to me, the rest I don’t care about, if there’s one format of cricket which makes this game pure – it is Test cricket and one art of this format that makes it stand out from the rest - is swing bowling.

Now, many swing bowlers have come and gone, they all might have had some impact on their team and some not so, but today there’s one such name that pops into my mind when I think about swing bowling, the name is James Anderson, someone whose been the spearhead of the English attack for some years now.

Taking the Ian Botham legacy forward wouldn’t have been easy for any English bowler. Darren Gough, Simon Jones, Chris Lewis, Steve Harmison, Mathew Hoggard and so many more have come and gone but they couldn’t resist the pressure of international cricket the way that Anderson has.

After the shameful tour down under in 2007, where England lost the Ashes 5-0, a young James Anderson looked to establish a name for himself in the CB series and he did. The performances may have not been good enough to attract everyone’s attention but they were enough to cement his place in the side and since then, he hasn't looked back.

At 6 ft 2 inch, Anderson is able to extract bounce from the wicket but what's the big deal about it? He's no Joel Garner. But there’s something that Anderson has had which sets him apart from the rest – it's his inswinging delivery that cliffs theoff batsmen’s middle/leg stump or is at least good enough to get the batsmen in 2 minds (whether to leave or play) – a delivery that he has so successfully turned into his wicket taking ball.

The English opening bowler has perfected the delivery – pitching it on right about off stump and then getting it back into the batsmen. He has deceived world class batsmen like Sachn Tendulkar, Mahela Jayawardene, Jacques Kallis, Ricky Ponting, Kumar Sangakkarra with his this very delivery.

The point of focus here is the delivery stride – it’s just like his natural delivery, there’s hardly any change in the bowling action, which makes this delivery all the more challenging to be faced by the batsmen.

It’s therefore because of this delivery that batsmen prefer to hit Anderson straight rather than cross-bat because you never know which way the ball will be moving.

In his 93 Test matches, Anderson has successfully grabbed 350 wickets, a phenomenal record which makes him one of the best bowlers that this game has seen. He is equally talented to move the ball away from the batsmen, which makes the inswinger even more deadly! The misery for batsmen is endless while facing him.

Anderson will turn 32 on July the 30th. For someone his age, his records speak for him. However, how will have his eyes on the landmark record of Sir Ian Botham – 383 wickets in 102 matches. The Lancashire lad is 33 wickets away from achieving this feat and if he does, he will be the most successful bowler England has ever had.

Anderson still has solid 4-5 years of cricket left in him and if he maintains his fitness then maybe more.

To underrate his swing bowling because the conditions in which majority of his international cricket has been played is favorable to his style of bowling will be a flawed argument and the reason is – “you must possess talent to utilise it”.