Anderson swings his way to 500 - but Stokes also makes ball talk...
Monday 11 September 2017 07:12, UK
Career bests and cricketing goodbyes were features of the final Test at Lord's as England wrapped up a 2-1 series success over Windies to head into The Ashes on a high.
The clash at the Home of Cricket will be forever etched into history, too, with it being the game in which James Anderson became the first Englishman to take 500 Test wickets.
Anderson is a nailed-on certainty to board the plane to Australia, with the identities of those who will join him hotly debated by our Ashes panel after a speedy three-day finish.
Here are the notables from the Lord's Test...
Stokes swings the ball miles!
England fans witnessed a master swing bowler in action at Lord's - and Anderson wasn't bad either! Anderson (more on him in a bit) remains the king of swing but perhaps Ben Stokes is the prince, following a scintillating 15-over spell at HQ that earned him career-best figures of 6-22.
The Durham all-rounder had the ball curling round corners under overcast skies on day one, bowling Roston Chase with a beauty that angled in, straightened and clipped off stump, as well as splattering Jason Holder and Shannon Gabriel's stumps with rampant in-swinging deliveries.
"Stokes showed his finest colours as a bowler, lots of swing - prodigious swing - and seam movement as well in the gloom," mused Sky Sports' Bob Willis. "He got the ball to talk and showed his stamina as well. The hope is this is a sign his bowling is moving forward in the way his batting has done."
Stokes' form with the blade has, as Bob mentions, been impressive this summer, the 25-year-old scoring two hundreds and four fifties across the seven Tests against Windies and South Africa, with the last of those half-centuries helping England claim a vital 71-run first-innings lead.
500 up for Anderson amid career-best
England's last-wicket pair, Anderson and Stuart Broad, added 31 of those 71 runs - Anderson's gorgeous cover drive a particular highlight - but it was with the ball where Jimmy, as usual, flourished, becoming the third seamer, and sixth bowler in total to eclipse 500 Test wickets.
Kraigg Brathwaite became Anderson's 500th victim when a full in-swinger rattled the base of his off-stump, but the bowler's 501st scalp was arguably better, Kieran Powell's off-bail grazed by a pearler from around the wicket that shaped in, nipped off the seam, and beat the edge. Unplayable.
Windies closed day two on 93-3 with a lead of 22 but any hopes they had of setting England a challenging fourth-innings total were eviscerated by Anderson, who picked up a further five wickets to achieve a Test-best 7-42, including Windies' Headingley hero Shai Hope (62) caught behind.
That moved Anderson on to 506 Test wickets - 39 of them this summer - and back into top spot in the ICC bowling rankings. "I think in English conditions there has never been a better bowler," said Willis. England will now hope Anderson can get to grips with Australian conditions this winter.
Gibson's goodbye - and Blowers bows out
England's outgoing bowling coach Ottis Gibson will surely have one eye on The Ashes while he focuses on his new gig as head coach of South Africa. Gibson will be a big miss in the England camp, and not just because coach Trevor Bayliss will now have to find someone else to go golfing with!
"A lot of hard work contributed towards this success which is why I gave a little wave to Gibbo," said Stokes after his 6-22. "He has helped me a lot over the last six or seven weeks, putting in hours of work on technical stuff. If it hadn't been for him I'm not sure I would have had a day like I did today."
We also learnt that Gibson isn't the only disappearing West Indian, with Charles Colvile examining why players and spectators from an Afro-Caribbean heritage have slipped away from the game, speaking to former England star Alex Tudor and Kent batsman Daniel-Bell Drummond.
Cricket broadcasting, meanwhile, will now be shorn of that "dear old thing" Henry Blofeld, with Bowlers calling time on his 47-year career with Test Match Special. It's unlikely he will call time on his garish dress sense, though - check out his garb as he enjoyed a chinwag with good pal Bumble!
The great Ashes bunfight
With the Windies series now complete, all focus has shifted towards the squad England will pick to battle Australia. The seam bowling looks fairly easy to predict, with our Ashes panel agreeing that Toby Roland-Jones and Mark Wood should join Anderson, Broad, Stokes and Chris Woakes.
Sir Ian Botham and co also selected Mason Crane as back-up to England's first-choice spinner Moeen Ali, which looks like a given with the 20-year-old Hampshire leggie included in every squad to play the Windies, albeit without playing, and working extensively with Saqlain Mushtaq in the nets.
The batting, however, is far less certain. Mark Stoneman and Tom Westley did themselves no harm by ushering England to victory at Lord's with 40 and 44 not out respectively, while Dawid Malan scored a couple of gritty fifties in the first two Tests against Windies, at Edgbaston and Headingley.
Westley would seem the most in peril, having averaged just 17.75 against Jason Holder's men, but the entire trio face an anxious wait, with the remaining rounds of County Championship fixtures giving Alex Hales, Keaton Jennings and James Vince the chance to usurp them.
Marcus' Masterclass
Marcus Trescothick was a mainstay of the England Test side between 2000 and 2006 and although he is long retired from international cricket now, he remains crucial for Somerset, the 41-year-old plundering his 95th career hundred against Warwickshire in the Championship last week.
Fresh from that unbeaten 119, in a winning cause to boot as Somerset boosted their survival hopes, Trescothick entered The Zone for the latest Sky Cricket Masterclass, with the left-hander providing tips on how to negate spin and why playing the ball late was key for him.
Tres was joined by Nasser Hussain, whose mimicking of his former team-mate's batting style backfired when Ian Ward fiddled with the bowling machine and sent down an in-swinger that Nas was not prepared for, the two subsequently enjoying a chuckle about it on commentary.
Somerset were represented by Trescothick in The Zone on Saturday, then, and by Anya Shrubsole on Sunday, as the seamer and her fellow England Women's World Cup winner, batsman Tammy Beaumont, dished out cricket pointers to school girls in the final Coaching Clinic of the summer.
