ENG vs PAK | Ageas Bowl Day 4 Talking Points - Immortal Anderson and the Shan Masood disappointment

ByAnirudh Suresh, SportsCafe Editor

08/24/2020

After threatening to do an encore of the second Test, the Southampton weather, surprisingly, permitted one full session of play, perhaps the most soul-less one of the entire summer. Azhar Ali picked up from where he left off on Day 3, but really, the entire day was built around Jimmy Anderson.

Shan Masood - Pakistan’s biggest disappointment?

You bet Shan Masood misses the time when the only way the English bowlers were able to dismiss him was him accidentally tickling a ball aimed at his hips to the keeper - that was only 17 days ago. Even in a series where their two premier young pacers have combinedly averaged over 50 with the ball, you wonder if Pakistan’s biggest disappointment would be the abrupt downfall of Shan Masood. Even as a neutral, Masood’s gradual decline through the course of the series has been a bit disquieting. How can a man who batted so flawlessly and scored a 156 in the toughest conditions the series had to offer, end up adding just 23 more runs in the rest of the series?

So much was written about him after the 156 - some said he was a transformed man; some said he had conquered his demons and some even vouched for him to be the captain. All arguments looked reasonable, given that the 156 was his third ton in as many innings. Yet here he was, today, just three innings later, looking like the walking wicket he was in 2016. How could it be possible that he went from Murali Vijay of 2014 to Murali Vijay of 2018 in the span of five days?

Masood knows Anderson had his number post Manchester; he knows he is beaten, battered and bruised. What Pakistan would be hoping is for him not to be broken - that would hinder their progress by months.

Dom Bess needs some experience under his belt

Make no mistake, Dom Bess is supremely talented. He has established the same over the last eight Tests or so, dating back to the Cape Town Test versus South Africa in January. But he is not ready for Test cricket - yet. On display today was a kid who simply did not know what to do when the onus was on him to make something happen. Far too often, Bess dragged his deliveries short and while there was the odd ripper which threatened to zoot through the gap between bat and pad, a majority of the 84 deliveries he bowled today were dealt with ease by both Abid and Azhar.

It is no coincidence that the bowlers who have struggled in this series have been kids who have little but no first-class experience. Sure, Bess might have played 46 FC games, but Test cricket is a completely different animal. Even in FC cricket, he simply hasn’t found himself enough in situations where he’s had to bowl his team to victory single-handedly and it showed today.

Bess is versatile, intelligent and he is a special talent, yes, but what he needs right now is to develop. And that he can do by getting a couple of full county seasons under his belt, preferably as a premier spinner. He might have run away with wickets versus both South Africa and West Indies, but it’s fair to say that the best way to assess spinners is by evaluating their performance against subcontinent sides.

Immortal Jimmy Anderson can - and will - play as long as he wants

There are certain athletes who make you eat humble pie everytime you write them off - Federer, Nadal, Ronaldo have all done it multiple times. Fair to say Jimmy Anderson has earned the right to put himself amongst these elites. It is one thing to function as an elite fast bowler at 38 years of age, but it is superhuman to outrightly be the best in your side even at that age. If we’ve learnt one thing throughout the course of this series, it’s that there is no better exponent of swing bowling than Jimmy Anderson - even at 38.

The sheer audacity of Anderson to call for a press conference after picking 3 wickets in 5 innings and tricking the press into believing that he’s going to retire, only to claim that he is hungry to play until 2021 and back his words up by picking 9 wickets in the following 3 innings is what makes him extraordinary. What’s scary is that he is, in fact, getting better. In his spell in the second Test (3/60) he clocked an average speed of 135.95kph - his highest average speed in a home Test since 2014. It was telling that today, with the old ball, with a hint of reverse swing available, Root trusted Anderson over both Broad and Archer. And it was telling that Anderson actually delivered.

Number 600 might or might not come tomorrow, but anyone who watched Anderson bowl today will attest to the fact that he is not stopping anytime soon - and he shouldn’t.