Pakistan vs England Third Test preview: Jimmy Anderson relishes learning new tricks in trying conditions

The old warrior has been in his element on the slow, dusty, turning pitches in the UAE, manipulating the ball, bowling with a cross seam, trying fast off-spin and waiting for reverse swing

Jimmy Anderson says that trying to bowl reverse swing is a ‘real test, and quite good fun’ (Getty Images)

Spin may be king in this neck of the desert but the manner in which England’s pace quartet have gone about their business has been princely. They are containing Pakistan, forcing them to defend, coming up with new tricks, attempting to force error.

It has been cat and mouse as a work of art and none has contributed more than Jimmy Anderson. The old warrior has been in his element, manipulating the ball, trying to play new tricks with it, bowling with a cross seam, trying fast off-spin, waiting for reverse swing.

Anderson has gone at two runs an over, the most parsimonious bowler on either side, and has eked out seven wickets in the two Tests so far. His long-time partner, Stuart Broad, has gone at 2.39 an over, Mark Wood at 2.71 and Ben Stokes at 3.01.

“In these conditions you’ve got to try and get something out of it as a seamer, you try all sorts of things,” he said. “We’ve had the keeper up at different stages, you bowl off-cutters and things like that. The ball that got Misbah-[-ul-Haq] the other day was a genuine off-spinner, you just try it.”

He was full of praise for the less experienced half of the pace quartet. “Mark Wood has done brilliantly, and he and Ben Stokes, their bowling has improved out of sight on this trip. The first week we were here, the first warm-up game I remember both of them saying it was pretty boring. They both want to take wickets, they want to steam in and rough people up, but you just can’t do that out here.

“Reverse swing is playing its part. It is a real test of your skills and it is quite good fun. If you have a good day out here, you feel you get more out of it personally. There is more reward.”

There spoke an old-fashioned, though highly skilful, English swing and seam bowler who should prefer nothing more than a damp morning at Headingley. But he and his fellow seamers are clearly excited by the challenge on the slow, dusty, turning pitches in the UAE.

The chances are that the surface for the third Test in Sharjah, which England must win to level the series, will be still less favourable for them. But a sound case has been made in some quarters that England would be wiser to attack Pakistan with a profusion of seam rather than spin because that is where their real strength lies. Anderson is not wholly convinced.

“They have been pretty quiet against the seamers,” he said. “That is partly because we’ve bowled very well and partly because they know their strength is against spin and they feel they can go after our spinners.

“It could be very dull cricket if they only score two an over against the seamers and attack the spinners. On a spinning pitch you have got to back your spinners.

“Our stat man very kindly put a few things up on the wall about seam movement and swing percentages at the start of the series – and Sharjah was a 3 per cent seam movement, which was pretty depressing from a bowler’s point of view. It means that if you bowled 100 balls, only three might seam more than a centimetre.”

At somewhere like Trent Bridge on a sporting pitch, he agreed, that figure might be something like 73.

England knew it would be like this. When they came here four years ago, Anderson and Broad were used then as the warm-up act for the spinners. But they took some wickets, were tight and had the more prodigious slow double act of Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar. It was the batting which foundered then.

Anderson knows that the whole thing could again be out of his hands for the same reason. If England do not score sufficient first-innings runs, as they patently did not in Dubai, then he can bowl tight all match long and it will still be lost.

“Probably three out of the four innings we’ve been very good with the way we want to play our cricket with the bat,” he said. “And it is just that one session. With a relatively young, inexperienced batting line-up it can happen, especially out here, as we saw last time we were out here.

“It’s one of those things you’ve got to learn from. If you do learn from it, you’ve got to make sure it doesn’t happen again – or not as often.”

James Anderson is speaking on behalf of Waitrose, official sponsor of the England cricket team. For exclusive player content visit: waitrose.com/cricket