Jimmy Anderson has had many great weeks in a glittering career but few can have bettered this one. Having been accorded the unique honour for an active England cricketer of an “end” being named after him at a Test match venue, he yesterday took to the field at his beloved Old Trafford in front of an adoring crowd of Lancastrians and did his county and country proud with bat and ball, four runs followed by four wickets.
Don’t be fooled by the four runs; they were worth many more than that. Strolling out at No 11, Anderson held up an end in what proved a crucial Trans-Pennine alliance with Jonny Bairstow worth 50 runs in 9.1 overs. Anderson mostly blocked as though his life depended on it — even though he could not resist an attempted reverse sweep that almost cost him his wicket — and gave Bairstow a golden opportunity to reach a much-deserved hundred. Sadly, Bairstow misjudged a sweep and became only the second England batsman to be out lbw for 99.
Anderson then took control with the ball, trimming it this way and that through the air and off the pitch as only he can. With just his third delivery from the newly christened Anderson End he trapped the left-handed Dean Elgar, who had made a defiant century at The Oval but was now out for a duck, with a delicious in-swinger. Anderson’s roar of delight showed how much it meant to him.
With the last ball of his opening spell he nearly won a leg-before decision against Temba Bavuma, promoted to No 4 in a sensible swap with Quinton de Kock, but when he returned for a second burst after tea, Anderson found the tenacious Bavuma still in residence and he quickly returned to probing around his off stump. It was only a matter of time. Bavuma soon misjudged the line and let go a ball that trimmed his off bail: the sixth South Africa batsman in the series to be out attempting to play no shot.
Anderson’s tail was well and truly up and two balls later he had the South Africa captain Faf du Plessis bowled off a loose defensive prod. Theunis de Bruyn then offered a sharp chance to Keaton Jennings in the gully from a ball that bounced sharply but the reprieve proved only temporary. Brain scrambled, De Bruyn attempted to drive a wider ball and was caught in regulation fashion by Joe Root in the slips, though Root required treatment on his hand.
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In 24 balls, Anderson had taken three for six and his overall figures of four for 33 constitute his best in seven Tests on his home ground. This was a glimpse of the old Anderson, before injuries became a more regular occurrence, and his best exhibition, if not his best figures, for at least 12 months. This morning Anderson will be part of another Old Trafford commemoration when an honours board will be unveiled in the pavilion to Lancashire’s Wisden Cricketers of the Year, of whom he was one in 2009.
The upshot was that, with South Africa’s batting failing once again, England took firm control of the fourth Investec Test match and moved a step closer to sealing a first series win over South Africa on home soil since 1998.
On this surface, it was natural that England should look to their pace bowlers to assert a stranglehold, and Root for two hours trusted only Anderson, Stuart Broad and Toby Roland-Jones, but just as Keshav Maharaj played a vital role for South Africa, so did Moeen Ali for England. In a long unbroken spell from the end that does not belong to Anderson, Moeen used the breeze blowing across the ground to seal up one end.
It was Moeen’s drift that did for Heino Kuhn, who was smartly caught low down by Ben Stokes at slip, and he might also have had De Kock caught at slip, but this was a chance that even the eagle-eyed Stokes could not hold. When Moeen later had Maharaj plumb lbw, he had 20 wickets for the series, his best ever haul; not bad for a No 2 spinner.
When Broad nipped out De Kock, England knew they were assured of a big lead, an advantage sealed when Stokes pulled off a stunning one-handed catch in the day’s final over to remove Kagiso Rabada. The most important blow was struck shortly after lunch by Roland-Jones when with his third delivery he induced Hashim Amla into feathering a catch down the leg side, giving Bairstow his 100th dismissal as a Test keeper.
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Amla was looking dangerous, stroking the ball as handsomely as at any stage in the series, but in two matches Roland-Jones has asserted a remarkable control over South Africa’s great batsman on whom so much rests if his side are not to get bogged down. If Amla was culpable it was that he was perhaps playing too freely at everything.
England laid the groundwork for their strong position with the unusual patience they displayed on the first day when they accumulated their second-lowest first-day score under Trevor Bayliss of 260 for six (they made 258 for seven on day one in Chittagong last winter). However, when they lost the wickets of nightwatchman Roland-Jones, Moeen and Broad in 10 overs the game looked evenly poised at 312 for nine.
South Africa should have closed things out but moments later De Kock spilled a routine edge from Bairstow that would have given Rabada a fifth wicket. The game then descended into a game of cat-and-mouse which South Africa lost, Bairstow thwarting their attempts to get Anderson on strike for the start of an over. Of the 55 balls they faced together, Bairstow received 40, off which he plundered 46, and Anderson 15. Bairstow was philosophical: he had missed out on a first hundred in 15 Tests, in which he has scored 11 fifties, but might have been given out on four.
England’s eventual score of 362 left them holding the initiative. Only twice since 2001, and indeed only 12 times in 504 Tests ever, have they lost at home after scoring this many in the first innings. It does not look as though that is about to change.
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England v South Africa, fourth Test, day three
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