- England ended their first innings all out for 371, leading opponents by 250 runs
- Anderson then took two wickets in his 10 overs with the ball late on day two
- Wednesday – day three – will likely be his final day in an England shirt as he retires
The seam pointed skywards and the ball nipped down the slope. A split second later, it cannoned into the top of middle and leg, sending a despondent Kraigg Brathwaite back to the pavilion, and a beaming Jimmy Anderson into the arms of team-mates.
We’ve seen it all before, of course, but there was poignancy in the thought that, after Thursday, we won’t be seeing it again. Here was a farewell gift for a packed Lord’s, which had turned red for the Ruth Strauss Foundation but was now aglow with appreciation: Anderson’s 702nd Test wicket felt as carefully conceived, as perfectly executed, as any of his previous 701.
On a day when Jamie Smith – like his fellow Surrey debutant Gus Atkinson 24 hours earlier – hinted at the Test team’s brave new world during a superb innings of 70, Anderson conjured a blast from the past to set England on their way to what will be a crushing victory in the first Test against West Indies.
And while Smith drew gasps with two huge sixes, the second passing not far from the Old Father Time weathervane on its way towards St John’s Wood Road, Anderson provoked a nostalgic roar.
He may not be the bowler he once was: the first innings confirmed what had become increasingly clear during last summer’s Ashes. Tellingly, this was only the third time he had struck in his first spell in the last 21 innings. But the old magic lurks close to the surface.
When Ben Stokes removed Kirk McKenzie, leg-before – his 200th Test wicket – and Mikyle Louis, caught behind, and Atkinson bowled Kavem Hodge off the inside edge to collect his eighth of the match, West Indies were 37 for four, still 213 behind.
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And when Anderson returned to have Alick Athanaze caught low down by Smith for 22, there was an outside chance of a two-day finish. But Jason Holder stood firm, only to pop Atkinson to Ollie Pope at short leg in the evening’s final over, dragging himself off with the scoreboard reading 79 for six. After the euphoria of their win at Brisbane in January, this has been a sorry match for West Indies.
England had spent the first two sessions turning their overnight dominance into impregnability, as Joe Root and Harry Brook toyed with the bowling during effortless half-centuries.
But it was not until Smith took charge, with only the lower order for company, that the pulse quickened. He had emerged at the fall of Stokes, bowled for four by a beauty from left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie that turned out of the rough, through the gate, and on to middle stump.
Stokes was open-mouthed in astonishment, perhaps reminded of the recent tour of India, where the home spinners reduced his output to single figures. It was on that trip that England grew concerned by the one-dimensional nature of Ben Foakes’ batting, especially with the tail.
But Smith moves more naturally through the gears, having convinced the management of his suitability for the Bazballers with a string of pulsating innings, for both Surrey and England Lions.
He was careful at first, scoring seven from his first 34 balls, before taking consecutive boundaries off Jayden Seales, both crisply driven. Then, after Motie had bowled Root for 68 just before lunch with a skilful arm-ball, Smith began to assert himself during a seventh-wicket stand of 52 with Chris Woakes, advancing down the pitch to launch Seales over extra cover.
But it was his two sixes that affirmed the feather in the selectors’ caps. The first, off Shamar Joseph, disappeared into the Grand Stand; the second, an even bigger blow off Seales, over the Tavern. Lord’s loved that.
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Smith lost Shoaib Bashir next ball, run out by Mikyle Louis’s dead-eye direct hit from fully 40 yards as the batsmen attempted a second, and eventually fell aiming for a third six – a fourth wicket for the persevering Seales. It was an innings to render the Bairstow-Foakes debate redundant, to smooth out the kind of wrinkle that can irritate a dressing-room.
‘I always like to be aggressive,’ said Smith. ‘I want to play my cricket on the front foot, but over the last two years I have gone away from traditional methods a little bit in a quest to score my runs.’
Anderson, meanwhile, had walked out for what was almost certainly his final Test innings, yet any prospect of a West Indian guard of honour – to match the Australians’ reception for Stuart Broad at The Oval last year – had been scuppered because Louis’s celebrations had dragged everyone towards the boundary in front of the visitors’ balcony. Or, as Seales put it, ‘all the way down to Swiss Cottage’.
And if Anderson was disappointed not to face one final ball, he quickly made up for it during a probing opening spell of 5-4-2-1. Stokes sent down 10 overs in a row, while Atkinson needs only one of the remaining four wickets to mark an impressive Test debut with 10 in the match.
But the final moments, like this game itself, belonged to Anderson. Four balls after removing Athanaze, he had been driven through mid-off by Josh Da Silva, and reacted with the grumpiness of a man who may never mislay his competitive instinct. 20 minutes later, Stokes ushered him to the front as England trooped towards the pavilion steps.
Anderson looked as reluctant to take the applause as he did to leave the field. He’ll get one more chance today, this moody, magnificent bowler who can’t live with the limelight and can’t live without it. Very soon, English cricket will have to get used to living without him.