James Anderson: "England absolutely nailed it today"

After losing the toss and being asked to field, England were batting by tea, with Anderson having dismissed India's top three before watching on as his colleagues ran through the visitors' order

James Anderson admitted that England “made a conscious effort of trying to focus on us” rather than become engaged again in a verbal battle on the field with India’s players, as he reflected on a remarkable day at Headingley.

Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to bat but saw his side bowled out before tea, having lost seven wickets for just 22 runs in the space of 89 balls, having recovered from an early burst from Anderson – he took 3 for 6 in eight overs – to be 56 for 3 when Ajinkya Rahane was caught behind off the bowling of Ollie Robinson to the last ball before lunch.

The catch was one of five for Jos Buttler, with the fifth coming shortly after the interval, as Rishabh Pant flashed at a wide ball. The floodgates opened thereafter: Rohit Sharma pulled Craig Overton to mid-on and, when Overton had Mohammed Shami caught at slip next ball, the Somerset man was on a hat-trick. Before India could add another run, Sam Curran claimed two wickets in two balls himself, though once again couldn’t complete the set.

England are not always so clinical, India rarely so generous

It marked a staggering shift from last week at Lord’s, when England let slip a final-day advantage to lose in the final session. There, the teams had become embroiled in a series of mini-spats that Kohli and his teammates suggested afterwards were used as fuel to galvanise their cause for a historic win.

“There was a bit of chat about that,” said Anderson, acknowledging that England had made a point of “focusing on us and what we do well”.

“The first three or four days at Lord’s, we played brilliantly, didn’t get involved in too much discussion. After that maybe it did affect us a little bit.”

^{Virat Kohli was dismissed by James Anderson for the seventh time in Tests}

On his dismissal of Kohli – the seventh time he has dismissed India’s captain in Tests – he added: “We’ve had some great battles over the years, he’s a fantastic player and someone you want to keep quiet. Especially in a five-match series, you know if he gets going then he can be very disruptive. The way we've bowled at him has been very, very good and we've just got to try and keep him quiet as often as we can.”

As for the performance as a whole, he compared it to the feeling of bowling out Australia for 98 on Boxing Day in Melbourne 11 years ago, before surpassing their score with 10 wickets in hand. “The only difference with Melbourne is that I was keen to bowl there and I wasn’t today for some reason,” he said.

“I was trying to tempt Joe into batting. I think he was leaning towards a bowl but we'll never know, it was taken out of our hands. We didn’t know the wicket was going to play, I thought it was pretty good but it was a little bit quicker than we expected and we got a bit of swing early on which helped.

“The way all the bowlers adjusted to the wicket with the lengths we bowled, the lines we bowled, was brilliant. We’ve talked about trying to bowl as a unit, as a group, and we just absolutely nailed it today.

“It doesn’t get much better than that I don’t think. Losing the toss, being asked to bowl and then putting in a performance like that it just doesn’t get much better. The way the two guys played towards the end of the day with the bat was outstanding and exactly what we've been asking for.

“With both ball and bat, we’ve displayed exactly what we wanted to do. These days don’t come around very often so you just have to be happy when they do.”