Anderson Makes a Splash on His Debut

James Anderson all but waved goodbye to his days of grinding out a living on the county circuit yesterday. If his form and fitness hold - and five wickets at Lord's was as emphatic a statement as he could have wished to make at the start of what promises to be a long Test career - the 20-year-old Lancashire fast bowler will surely become the first cricketer to play more games for his country than for his county.

Since his debut for Lancashire less than a year ago, Anderson has played 17 county championship matches and 20 limited-overs games. When he was drafted in to the England squad in the winter for the VB series in Australia, he had played only three one-day games for his county. He already has 14 for England, plus a Test, of which there should be many more to come.

If there is a resounding case to be made in favour of central contracts, it comes in the form of the 6ft 2in, blond-streaked young man from Burnley. Lancashire suspect they are likely to see very little of him in the future and so does Anderson. 'Having had a taste of international cricket,' he said recently, 'I want to play it for as long as I can. And if that means not playing as much for Lancashire, then so be it.'

Central contracts are obviously the way forward - especially for fast bowlers - as South Africa and Australia have discovered. You have only to look at the virtually injury-free career of Glenn McGrath, until very recently, to see the benefits of reducing the workload of key players. (While Jason Gillespie's habit of breaking down towards the end of a series does punch a bit of a hole in the theory, he is unusually fragile.)

The strategy was then adopted and adapted here by David Graveney and Lord MacLaurin and implemented by Duncan Fletcher, for which slavish adherence to common sense they all deserve congratulations.

Fletcher can now go to Lancashire at the conclusion of this Test match and, if he wishes, demand that Anderson be rested for Lancashire's championship match against Kent that is scheduled to start on Friday. Thereafter in this packed international summer there will be few opportunities for the young bowler to play for Lancashire until after the fifth Test against South Africa at the beginning of September.

Then England go to Bangladesh in October, followed by a trip to Sri Lanka, a Christmas break and the tour to the West Indies.

Yesterday - in contrast to his nervous start the previous evening, when he gave up 17 runs in his first over of Test cricket - Anderson built a rhythm that exploded in a withering spell towards the end of the Zimbabwe innings.

At 134 for six, Zimbabwe lost Heath Streak and Travis Friend in successive balls to the irresistible pace and cut of the jittery debutant. On the hat-trick ball, Anderson held his nerve - and Ray Price clearly did not - as the ball jagged tantalisingly past the tailender's bat.

He took his last four wickets for five runs in 14 balls, rattling through the tail as if he had an appointment with the hairdresser. Perhaps he had.

What impresses about Anderson is his willingness to absorb whatever it is he needs from those around him. He does not pretend to have heroes - when asked who he might have modelled himself on at Lancashire, he was at a loss for an answer - but he takes advice.

In that regard, he has been both lucky and unlucky under Nasser Hussain. In the VB match against Australia on an unbearably warm night in Adelaide, the England captain bowled Anderson straight through his complement of 10 overs and was rewarded with a performance of rare discipline as he gave up just 12 runs.

While Anderson recovered in an ice-bath, Hussain said afterwards that he pushed him to the limit because he knew that it would reap a dividend later in his career.

Perhaps he thought that moment had come in England's penultimate over against Australia in their World Cup match at Port Elizabeth, when he turned away from the experienced Andy Caddick and threw the ball to Anderson, who was duly slaughtered by Andy Bichel, the game was lost and England were on their way home.

But that, too, will have helped him. It cannot be roses all the way, even for a young cricketer whose rise has been as spectacular as that of any England fast bowler since Fred Trueman.

The wonderful old Yorkshireman always reckoned that anyone who came close to his records would be 'bloody tired'. At least Anderson can look up that mountain knowing that he will not have the full weight of a county career to slow him down.

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