Jimmy Anderson finally gets in the swing of it at Headingley with a five for

England bowler comes up trumps on a ground where he has had little success, writes Derek Pringle

Anderson's previous Headingley stats were just 19 wickets at 41.3 in eight Tests, with a best of 3 for 136 (GETTY)

Jimmy Anderson and Headingley were not close pals until Friday. But then England’s greatest pace bowler had never bowled like that here before, forcing Sri Lanka to follow-on after recording his best ever figures at the ground.

Headingley has long produced more cricketing miracles than Lord’s (or is it Lourdes?) but it has its mysteries too, one of the more perplexing ones being Anderson’s lack of success here. Until now, when he took 5 for 16, he had taken just 19 wickets at 41.3 in eight Tests, with a best of 3 for 136. For such a fine swing and seam bowler as him that represents D minus at best.

The ground here has many quirks for bowlers as well as batsmen. For instance the ends are very different - the Football Stand End being gently uphill and generally down wind, the Kirkstall Lane End down hill and into it. Rhythm can be dramatically affected though someone as light on his feet as Anderson should suffer its effects less than most.

Then there is the cloud cover. Situated in a suburb among houses of dark-stained stone, Headingley can be as dark and foreboding as Dracula’s Castle when the skies hang grey and low, which they did for most of the day. Scientists will tell you that there is little empirical evidence that clouds, humidity or any other climatological phenomenon affects the way a cricket ball behaves.

Yet anecdotally, from Fred Trueman to Ryan Sidebottom, bowlers and batsmen here will tell you the ball moves a lot more when the sun is blotted out. Mind you, Trueman used to say the beer fumes from a packed Western Terrace used to help him swing it back in the 1950s, but that did not occur this time, perhaps because the stand wasn’t quite at capacity.

Anderson’s first wicket wasn’t taken in a manner befitting Headingley at all. As a veteran campaigner, he will not worry about that, but his victim, Kaushal Silva, can probably count himself a tad unfortunate that a short ball he swayed inside the line of seamed back to catch his bat en route to Jonny Bairstow behind the stumps. It was the first of five victims for the keeper whose brilliant 140 had already given England a potent advantage in the match.

Instead, it was left to Stuart Broad to reveal the tried and tested template for sending batsmen packing here - pitch it up, make them play and watch the edges fly, a checklist by which Dimuth Karuraratne and Kusal Mendis both perished for ducks.

A rest for Anderson allowed Ben Stokes to nip in with the wicket of Dinesh Chandimal, but when Stokes hurt his knee, Anderson was recalled. One can never be sure what juju is at play preventing Lancastrians like Anderson from succeeding at one of Yorkshire’s holiest sporting sites, but whatever it was he exorcised it in a three-wicket burst for no runs that ripped Sri Lanka apart.

If you had not been privy to his previous efforts, this is how one imagined Anderson must have bowled here his whole career. Springing in off his short, well-honed run, he immediately dialed in an awkward fullish length. Then there was the movement - a nip-backer to have Angelo Mathews lbw; one away off the seam to get rid of Dasun Shanaka; and an out-swinger to have the left-handed Rangana Herath caught at fourth slip.

It was a thrilling interlude for England, who’d earlier been dismissed for 298, but a dire one for Sri Lanka, made even worse soon after when Broad had two batsmen caught at mid-on. Then just as Sri Lanka could not imagine insult being added to injury, Anderson had Shaminda Eranga caught down the leg-side, a fortuitous strangle but one Anderson wasn't going to quibble over for his first five-wicket haul on Yorkshire soil.

In the past playing a Test at Leeds used to tick more boxes for pace bowlers than the seam-friendly Headingley pitch. There was decent ale to be had and some fine fish and chips, the last from either Bryan’s or Brett’s. Indeed, so good were the fish and chips that Mike Gatting used to order Baby Haddock with all the trimmings, times two, every night of the match.

Anderson will not celebrate his success with either of those pleasures. It is his wife’s birthday and today’s WAGs are a discerning lot for whom a pint and pollock no longer cuts it.