James Anderson returns to action with vintage dismissal

Telegraph

17-05-2025

One year after retiring from Test cricket, certain England players have not been the fittest or fastest. James Anderson, on his return to county cricket 11 months after his final Test, took two wickets in his first 26 balls back.
Anderson turns 43 in July, and his brow might have an extra furrow, but age has not withered. He measured out his run-up for Lancashire, cantered in as friskily as a colt, and upped his total as the world's highest first-class wicket-taker still playing to 1128 – and counting.
It was just the fillip that Lancashire needed. Bottom of division two, but favourites for promotion at the start of this season, they needed someone to kickstart their summer and Anderson did it in his first game back at Old Trafford, from the Sir James Anderson end.
A standing ovation from a reasonable crowd, given that Manchester had other interests, had been granted to the returning hero when he batted for four balls, and contributed a boundary to Lancashire's total of 458. It seemed somehow a more normal world again.
Anderson's first ball back was a touch wide but on a length. When he conceded a boundary, he spun round on his heels in self-disgust. But he quickly detected in Derbyshire's David Lloyd a weakness against the short ball: the old hunter could still scent a prey.
Before Anderson could attack Lloyd again, though he had the Australian Caleb Jewell in his sights, a left-handed opener. In his third over, Anderson switched to round the wicket and gave him a beauty, a bail-trimmer, a jewel for Jewell, that left him off the pitch and brushed the top of off stump.
Vintage Jimmy Anderson pic.twitter.com/ojCUQoCt4P
— Rothesay County Championship (@CountyChamp) May 17, 2025
Anderson raised his right arm aloft in his follow through. After 188 Tests and 704 wickets, a victim still tasted sweet.
England's all-time master of swing and seam, Anderson can still dish out rough stuff too. Lloyd kept ducking instead of taking the short ball on. When Anderson seamed a short ball back into Lloyd, he was adjudged to have gloved it to the wicketkeeper, although the batsman rubbed his chest as he withdrew.
Lancashire's new captain, an Australian Marcus Harris, did not give Anderson a second spell during the evening session, so Anderson will be as fresh as ever for day three.
But the chief wonder of Anderson's comeback was that he was spot on from the start. After 11 months of wondering whether he still had it, whether he could perform, he banished all the negative thoughts and landed right on the money. Or maybe it was no wonder at all: bowling is what he does, a bowler is what he is, like nobody else in England or the world of cricket. Only an ordinary mortal would have suffered the yips at such an age after such a long time away.
Elsewhere, Matt Henry took two wickets in his first game of the season for Somerset as Sussex were forced to follow on. Worcestershire might win their first game of this season after taking a handsome first innings lead against Essex.