0England v New Zealand: First Test, Day 2 — Oh Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy Anderson…

Or so the song goes.

A review of the second day’s play would always be incom­plete with a nod towards shin­ing star James Anderson.

By dis­miss­ing Kiwi open­er Peter Fulton (his second wick­et of the innings) Jimmy became only the fourth mem­ber of England’s pres­ti­gi­ous 300 club. Ian Botham, Bob Wil­lis and Fiery Fred True­man are the only oth­er cur­rent custodians.

Over the years the tall Lan­castri­an has developed from an at times unpre­dict­able quick­ie to the undis­puted King of the Swingers.

These days, when con­di­tions suit, there is no one bet­ter than Jimmy and he leads the Eng­land unit from the front and with some aplomb.

Add in some bril­liant field­ing dis­plays and a dogged determ­in­a­tion with the wil­low and you have one of the team’s top per­formers – so time to raise a glass to Jimmy – now on 301 wick­ets and only 83 behind bet­ter­ing Sir Ian’s all time record. I for one am not bet­ting against it.

And onto the play…

As an Eng­land fan it was dis­ap­point­ing to see not one home bats­man get­ting past 41. Plenty of starts but no fin­ishes. If no one registers at least a half cen­tury it’s always going to be hard to register 300+

That said it wasn’t easy going for New Zea­l­and either but they def­in­itely had the bet­ter of the day’s play. There were some decent peri­ods of bowl­ing from Eng­land but not enough con­sist­ency when it mattered.

And Matt Pri­or. What a roller-coast­er of a week:  Chosen as Eng­land play­er of the year for 2012–2013 only a few days ago and then a first ball duck and a dropped catch today. But Pri­or is made of strong stuff – a couple of minor set­backs like this won’t knock him back. I pre­dict a decent score in the second innings for the Sus­sex man.

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