Cricket: Anderson Jogs Memory

Remember James Anderson? Come on, think a bit harder. He was the pin-up of English cricket at the beginning of the 2003 season, the Beckham minus the sarong or the baggage. Well, as his county, Lancashire, start their county season with such zest and purpose in sun-kissed England, we were beginning to wonder how he gets in their team, let alone England's.

Anderson should be in contention for the England XI that takes on New Zealand at Lord's in the first Test of the summer. Early-season conditions could, arguably, suit Anderson, a classical fast bowler in the making, rather more than Simon Jones, whose erratic tendencies are not so suited to seaming May pitches in England. But I don't quite know how he can possibly be ready for a Test match after a Caribbean tour spent bowling at a baseball glove.

At least England have finally let Anderson loose for a one-day international in rain-drenched Trinidad. Yesterday he replaced James Kirtley for the second of the seven-match series, but he is now denied the privilege of the new ball, which resides in the hands of Darren Gough and Steve Harmison.

Like the first match played in Guyana last Sunday, the game was begun in a quagmire. Torrential rain on Friday ensured that and, as in Georgetown, the number of overs was reduced, this time to 46 overs per side - provided the rain stayed away for the entire day.

In Port of Spain they were rather more excited by the return of Brian Lara than that of Anderson. After a week of celebrating Lara's gargantuan Antiguan feat, their hero, with his damaged finger heavily bandaged, won the toss in front of a capacity crowd and opted to bat.

With so much moisture around, the ball was hard to control for the bowlers, hard to hit for the batsmen. The West Indies' score mounted mostly from an amalgam of edges and wides, usually when Gough was bowling.

Certainly Harmison was the better of the two opening bowlers. He now commands so much respect in the Caribbean that their batsmen are minded just to see him off in his first spell. That seemed to be Shivnarine Chanderpaul's intention. As at Georgetown last week he began slowly, but this time he could not last long enough to surprise us with the power of his strokeplay. In Harmison's fourth over he feathered an edge to Chris Read.

Enter Anderson for the eleventh over to remind us that he has not completely lost the golden touch. His first ball would have been a wide if Chris Gayle had not stretched to hit it with the toe of his bat into the covers. His second was a wide down the leg side. Then he conjured a wide long hop, which Gayle contrived to hit straight into the hands of Paul Collingwood at backward point. It had taken him three legitimate balls to make his mark.

Now the capacity crowd pined for the appearance of Lara at number four; the muted applause indicated that the new man was Ramnaresh Sarwan. It may be that Lara wanted to avoid the demon Anderson. More likely he was noting the grey clouds amassing in the hills beyond the Queen's Park Oval. He might as well keep his finger out of harm's way for as long as possible.

In the meantime Anderson acclimatised to the unusual sight of a batsman at the other end of the pitch when he was bowling. He conceded a few boundaries, but propelled the ball at a fair pace - around 84 mph - and increasingly in the right direction.

England have in been in limbo for the past week thanks to the quirks of the schedule and the Caribbean weather. But at least we know that Anderson is alive and capable of bowling three overs. However, after England had delivered 16 overs, in which the West Indies scored 57 for two, he had to take shelter.