A decade on,Anderson and England’s bowlers face their own challenge in reducing the output of Steve Smith,who averages 65.08 in England with six centuries. After dominating the 2019 series,Smithhas remodelled his game since the 2021-22 bout,in search of freer scoring.
For Anderson,captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum,one of numerous epiphanies of the “Bazball” era has been that England need to spend less time on planning and more on being agile to battle with opponents in the middle. Twenty years into his international career and approaching the age of 41,Anderson has learnt some new tricks.
To that end,Smith and other Australian danger players such as Marnus Labuschagne,Usman Khawaja and Travis Head will be subject to some planning,but nowhere near as much as in the past. In the past 12 months,Anderson has plucked a staggering 45 wickets at 17.62,striking every seven overs.
“I never really like singling anyone out,but he’s had a lot of success against us in recent times,” Anderson told this masthead of Smith. “Maybe in the past we’ve actually gone overboard in thinking of ways to get people out.
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“I’ll never forget the series in 2013-14 when Mitchell Johnson had a great time. Before that,we were so worried about him that we got Tymal Mills,the left-arm quick,and a few other guys to bowl at us in the nets off 16 yards,and the lads were terrorised before they even started the series. I think if you look too deeply into stuff like that it can affect you in a bad way.”
Over-analysis,or focus on the wrong things,can cause as many problems as it may solve. In the 1990s,England set themselves up for failure against Shane Warne in one series by watching copious footage of the great leg spinner knocking other teams over,rather than looking at the players who handled him well.