Hopes raised of another epic series-long duel between Anderson and Kohli

JAMES COYNE AT TRENT BRIDGE: Rain frustrated everyone at Trent Bridge, but Anderson and Kohli look set for another classic contest, rather than a sad farewell to arms from the great seamer

Trent Bridge (second day of five): England 183, India 125-4 - India trail by 58 runs with six first-innings wickets remaining

Scorecard

Trying to identify a logical career end-point for Jimmy Anderson is proving harder and harder, when it should be getting easier and easier.

When will it finally be time? After this series? After the winter’s Ashes? (If it happens?) After the next home Ashes? Before the end of the next World Test Championship cycle? 

Such is Anderson’s motivation and exemplary fitness record – not to mention England’s uncertain schedule, and their increasingly sketchy Test cricket – no one is any the wiser.

And besides, even if there was a reasonable consensus on a date, it would only spur him on to prove everyone wrong. Much the same goes for Stuart Broad. 

For some time now – pretty much since Anderson broke down in the opening Test of the 2019 Ashes at Edgbaston – there has been understandable squeamishness about the prospect of him and Broad playing in the same XI. Even he admitted on the eve of this series that his wife Daniella had to talk him into continuing after that early bath from the last Ashes. 

If Anderson and Broad are accompanied in the attack by another fast-medium bowler like Ollie Robinson, excellent though he is, then it runs the risk of England being rather one-note; things would be even worse still if Anderson breaks down again. 

But in conditions such as encountered by England here – and encouraged, in the sense that they requested from Nottinghamshire a pitch with 10mm of grass on top – where the Dukes ball continually darts about for long periods, under lights as well, it’s a mighty difficult combination to reject. 

After all, with 66 wickets at a healthy lick, Trent Bridge has been probably Anderson’s favourite Test ground.

^{Anderson drew level with Anil Kumble on 619 Test wickets}

Anderson turned 39 a few days before this match, and he bowled just three overs last night as India got through to the close unscathed – and there was some fear that the impact of the Jasprit Bumrah yorker to him might cause his discomfort. 

No such thing. 

Anderson beat the bat or inside edge numerous times in the morning, and he had to wait until after lunch to have an impact – and it immediately gave England a pick-me-up. 

It’s not just England who have issues with their frontline batting: Cheteshwar Pujara is not the batsman he was, and there are astute voices in the Indian press who believe his place will be under pressure if he makes a lean start to the series. Right now he’s probably helped by a few injuries. 

Pujara had already survived one overturned lbw dismissal by Robinson when Anderson lured him into a low edge behind to his 16th ball, well taken by Jos Buttler. 

And then came the king. Anderson had failed to take Virat Kohli’s wicket in 434 balls across 12 Test matches. In fact, it was so long ago that he had even dismissed Kohli more recently in ODIs (Headingley, September 2014) than he had in a Test (Old Trafford, August 2014). 

Kohli may well be the best-prepared Test cricketer of his generation, but he was unlucky enough first up to get a superb ball which darted away off the seam. His hard-handed thrust at the ball brought back memories of that 2014 tour, but this was his first ball of the series and the nerves were understandable. 

Kohli is without a century in eight Test matches and counting, but he surely will dictate the course of one of these five Tests – so it does England no harm to have him searching for runs so early on.

^{KL Rahul remains unbeaten on 57}

Anderson celebrated accordingly. “I used some muscles I don’t often use,” he quipped afterwards. And while he maintained that he tries not to get dragged into focusing too much on individual batsmen, and that fourth stump is a threat to any batsman in English conditions, you can bet he’ll have been revising hard on Kohli. 

Along with Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane is the other established India batsman under pressure. Brilliant though he is when he gets going, he endures bouts of terrible form and low confidence. That was clear from his jittery running, which almost got him run out on zero, and actually did a few balls later. 

This was part of a collapse of 4 for 15 in 38 balls – and it could have been better for Anderson and England had Dom Sibley held on at second slip to a low chance given by KL Rahul, who was making an impressive return to the side, three years after having his technique dissected here. He played and missed plenty of times, but this is Trent Bridge under lights in a Test match, after all. 

Had Sibley clung on, Anderson would have passed Anil Kumble to become the third-highest Test wicket-taker of all time, on 620, behind just Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne. 

Then came bad light and rain – worryingly in tune with a weather forecast which suggests there will be more stoppage than play over the remaining three and a half days. 

Meanwhile, those spectators who did stay in the ground were able to watch on the big screens a women’s match in The Hundred from Birmingham, where the players carried on out there even though it was raining.  

Taking a strictly parochial view, though, a rain-hit draw would be no bad thing for England: the batsmen can eke out a few extra days’ batting practice using video analysis of India’s excellent attack ahead of Lord’s, where you’d expect conditions to be fairly similar. 

There were just 33.4 overs in all today – Anderson’s unfinished over tragicomically separated by two and a half hours after the umpires took the players off after one ball, then two, due to returning rain. All this was rather too much for Test cricket lovers. 

The best thing about the day? That hope was rekindled of a series-long epic battle between Anderson and Kohli – and not a painful withdrawal from the format which the great seamer has graced like few before him.