Legend starts new role just days after Lord’s send-off, but is his former team ready?
Vithushan Ehantharajah16-Jul-2024Some were short. Some were wide. Some were too fast. Some too slow.Considering 49 of James Anderson’s 73 dismissals at Trent Bridge have been caught, it was a surprise to see him struggle with his accuracy during England’s slip practice. To be fair to him, he’s not spent much time searching for edges while wearing a baseball mitt on his left hand.Tuesday marked the launch of “James Anderson, bowling coach”. A second volume of his England career begins while some were still locked into the first. And as the 41-year-old got to grips with his new job after his enforced retirement came to pass at Lord’s on Friday with the conclusion of the first Test against West Indies, you could forgive the awkwardness.Cards on the table, it felt very weird. This could not have been further from Friday’s festivities. A dank cricket ground, empty but for the departing West Indies after their training session, and the constant buzzing of groundstaff who were locked in a battle with the weather for most of the day.Anderson, decked out in his same England tracksuit, was treated to a round of applause in the team huddle from now-former teammates and new coaching colleagues. That came after Mark Wood – who replaces Anderson in the XI – was welcomed back to the group. See? Weird.After finding his range with the cordon, Anderson moved over to a practice strip to oversee Wood and Dillon Pennington going through their paces. Soon enough, the rest of the seamers – Matthew Potts aside, who was batting – came over to bowl under Anderson’s gaze. A grim shower – one of the last scheduled for this week – sent them all inside, where Anderson’s watching brief continued, without hurling (or bowling) a ball at a batter.Should Anderson even be here? As blunt as that may seem, there are a few different strands to that question. But it’s worth focussing on two in particular.A legend deserving of a send-off is equally deserving of a bit of space, either for a few more Guinnesses or to scope out what’s next. To be fair to Anderson, his motivation for assuming the role so soon after retirement is to see if (a) he likes the fit and, (b) he fits the team. This isn’t simply about justifying what remains of his ECB central contract or handing him a consolation gig. Ironically, this, too, is about building for the next Ashes.The spikier strand, however, is wondering how England can really learn to live without Anderson, grow beyond Anderson or even simply move on from Anderson, when he is still there.Zak Crawley looks on during England’s training session•Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty ImagesFor all the knowledge there is to tap into, his presence represents a glory of old that is incredibly intimidating to newcomers. Literally four days ago, he was turning Joshua Da Silva inside-out for his 704th Test wicket. Can a new attack grow in his shade? Is it even possible to fill the void of his personality when that personality remains? And how will Anderson feel when some of the tenets he has lived by are not quite openly dismissed, but now frowned upon? Again, he was bowling in a Test literally four days ago.That, ultimately, is something that will get ironed out. But the challenge is not so much for Anderson but for the core of this England team that has grown in prominence during the tenure of Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes. And it is now, as they head into a home Test without either Anderson or Stuart Broad for the first time since both were rested in June 2012, that they will truly take the reins over the evolution of this team.Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope, Ben Duckett and Harry Brook have emerged as respected heads in this dressing-room, as much through performances as personality. Since the start of 2023, the quartet are among England’s top five runscorers, with Joe Root leading the way.Indeed the growth of these top-order batters can also be measured in the field. The confidence – and lack of chopping and changing – has improved England’s catching by and large. Their success percentage of 78.7 percent in the above period is better than Australia’s (77.0) and only 0.2 off India.They are surer of themselves to either offer Stokes advice, or direct traffic themselves when they sense a hunch, and are not afraid to do so without asking for their captain’s permission. At a time in this team’s life cycle where the bowling attack has lost 355 caps in the space of two retirements in successive home Tests, such assurance in the batting group is a necessity.Related
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“It’s certainly a changing of the guard,” Crawley said on Tuesday when addressing life beyond Anderson. With 45 appearances, he is now the fourth most-capped player in the team, with 11 more than Wood, who debuted in 2015, four years before the opening batter.Crawley’s journey to this point has been riddled with what we can now describe as “character-building” bumps. England’s leading runscorer in last year’s Ashes and this year’s tour of India has emerged as a front-runner as a potential successor to Stokes. Not many would have made that leap when he finished the 2022 summer with an average of 23.But it speaks of the dressing-room that Crawley now carries a healthy amount of responsibility without regarding himself as a “senior” player.”In terms of senior players, it’s weird in our environment,” he said. “We’re a very tight-knit group and we’re all encouraged to add to the environment, help the environment.”Even Dillon [Pennington] coming in for his first game [with the squad at Lord’s], you’re encouraged to help everyone around you. I feel like we all have that responsibility.”Of course, I feel like I have a responsibility to my teammates to help them. But I think that’s across the board. to be honest. I don’t feel like more than a leader than anyone else.”That’s reiterated to us all the time, that we look after each other. We’re a close-knit group and I see it as my role to help people around me and I’m sure they feel the same. In that sense I suppose I can have that impact on people but I think we all do in the group, that’s why we’re tight-knit.”That Gus Atkinson became the fifth player to take a five-wicket haul on debut under McCullum and Stokes backs up Crawley’s words. Similarly, the Surrey quick’s match haul of 12 for 106 at Lord’s suggests Anderson’s presence did not impede him at all.Nevertheless, we are about to enter a period that, much like England’s search for an opener after Andrew Strauss’s retirement in 2012, could involve a lot of trial and error.The onus is on the likes of Crawley to help the bowling group through whatever growing pains emerge. After all, Anderson might only be around for the summer.
