James Anderson takes his chance

As you can see at the bottom of this post, we reckon on James Anderson winning this Test for England. This is partly inspired by blind loyalty to any Lancastrian player, partly by our prejudice towards young promising players and also by our recognition that Anderson is a decidedly fine bowler who has been messed about by England.

Four wickets for 40, two dropped catches off his bowling and a run out. He's made a decent start. Maybe if he succeeds we'll have a James Anderson party. We don't know what that would entail.

England scrabble around for the ignition switch

That's a reference to 'coming to the boil'. Excuse our nerves, but we've been conditioned to panic at losses in warm-up games Down Under. Previously, they heralded outright humiliation. We're still quite confident as far as the Ashes goes, but you can't throw away all these years of experience.

It's Pavlovian conditioning. England concede 325-5, as they did last night and we are conditioned to run round yelping: "No. No. The wheels are coming off. Abandon tour. ABANDON TOUR."

As Patrick described past Ashes tour matches on the Times' cricket blog the other day:

"Go to bed as England start to play and wake up eight hours later to a radio announcer saying 'and in cricket, England suffered a humiliating defeat...'"

Of course it's not so bad these days. England still lose warm-up games with alarming regularity, but when the Tests come, they inevitably get their act together. It's still a trifle worrying though. Steve Harmison got carted, for one thing. We'd really like a bit of reassurance from him before long. If Faintly Underwhelming Steve Harmison is replaced by Destructive Steve Harmison for the first Test, that's fine, but we'd really prefer the swap a little earlier.

Also during this tour match, Duncan Fletcher revealed that James Anderson is currently ahead of Sajid Mahmood. James Anderson bowled whereas Sajid Mahmood didn't, so this is unlikely to change.

England turn up the heat in an attempt to thicken the sauce

We're finishing with the culinary analogies now. They're wordy and increasingly meaningless.

The three-day muck-about against New South Wales has finished. Kevin Pietersen got his hundred. Then James Anderson took 3-40. How quick is he now? Does anyone know? We're just wondering whether the stress fracture has slowed him at all. Hope not.

The big news of the day was that Phil Jaques didn't get a hundred: He got four. We always said he was rubbish.

James Anderson picked ahead of Monty Panesar

We're as desperate for Monty Panesar to get a game as anyone, but it's not the end of the world that England have selected an unchanged side.

Sure, Anderson was hit-and-miss during the last Test and went for quite a few, but he's a different kettle of fish when the ball swings. He's a giant vat and he's full of sharks.

During the practice match against South Australia, the ball did swing when the ball was new, so Anderson's got a chance to redeem himself. That's fair. We hate it when players are in and out of the side.

As for Monty, he just has to bide his time. He'll definitely get a game in Sydney at the very least. That's the final Test and there could be everything to play for. Monty Panesar could just be England's secret weapon, unleashed to wreak havoc in the final act.

It's all coming together in fantasyland. That's what a reasonable first day total for England gets you: Demented optimism born of a lifetime of England winning the Ashes in your own head and nowhere else.

James Anderson and Steve Harmison continue to bother England's selectors

England would have hoped that several key selection issues would have resolved themselves during this tour match against Western Australia.

Obviously they wouldn't have wanted James Anderson to bowl badly. But if he had have bowled badly, it would have been easier to drop him, which they must be thinking about. James Anderson was the pick of England's bowlers with 3-53.

Steve Harmison isn't likely to get dropped. What the selectors would have wanted to see would have been an upturn in form. Steve Harmison took 1-99.

The selectors would have probably wanted something from Monty Panesar that would have helped make their minds up too. Monty took 1-69.

There's another innings at least.

England win Down Under

England have won a game. They beat New Zealand. We love one-day cricket. It's bloody amazing, isn't it? We can't wait to see England lift the World Cup. We can barely remember the last time they lost a game.

James Anderson was 'the pick' of the bowlers. Operating in his role as 'the pick', Anderson took 4-42. Note for England's crack bowling strategist: Tell all of England's bowlers that they are 'the pick' of the bowling attack and then just sit back and reap the rewards. We should be a bowling coach.

Andrew Flintoff continued to prove that he isn't a complete spanner with the bat as well, scoring a match-winning 72 not out. All you'll read is that everyone wishes that England had gone to Australia in, like, August so that Flintoff's current form would have occurred during the Ashes. There's definitely a strong case against the tour itinerary, but we're a bit sick of hearing about it. At least he's in form now, that's our feeling. At least he's not a broken man, staring out of the window at the rain, wondering what the hell he's doing with his life. At least he's not worn down by guilt and unremitting pessimism.

New Zealand 205-9
England 206-7

We saw James Anderson

We went to watch Lancashire's Pro40 match against Glamorgan yesterday. It was a great victory for Lancashire, although the downside was that it was pretty much over as a contest after about four overs of Glamorgan's innings. Still, you can't complain if your team hammers someone, can you?

Dominic Cork set the tone of the match when he came in to bat at three. He's in form with the bat at the moment and he's still the kind of player who can have an impact that goes further than his own contribution. Nathan Astle outscored him, but it was Dominic Cork's presence that first got him going.

The biggest moment came when the teams were announced. There was one change to Lancashire's side and James Anderson was playing. James Anderson is loved without exception at Old Trafford and an actually quite decent crowd made sort of pleased murmuring sounds for a bit.

Later on, he came out to bowl and he immediately looked a class above anyone else, although maybe that's unfair on Kyle Hogg. Regardless, James Anderson didn't bowl a bad ball and if he wasn't 100%, he still seemed dangerous as he took a couple of wickets. He's not really one for emotions, but he celebrated quite noticeably when he took his first.

He'll probably be used to it by the Ashes and will barely crack a smile when he takes 10-12 in the first Test.

James Anderson's Ashes

We never mentioned how delighted we are that James Anderson has been selected for the Ashes. We sometimes forget that some of you haven't read the whole site. James Anderson's mentioned relatively infrequently here at King Cricket and this is basically because we assume that you all know how we feel. But, of course, you don't.

We want James Anderson back in England's team as soon as humanly possible. The lad's magic.

England have selected a number of pace bowlers over the last couple of years, most of whom have shown promise. James Anderson didn't show promise when he was first picked for England. He just performed.

There was a one-day match against Australia in Adelaide during the last Ashes tour when the Australians couldn't get him off the square. It was 40 degrees and James Anderson bowled his 10 overs straight though. He went for 12 runs. This was back in the days when Australia crushed England without mercy. He was only 20 then.

Since then he's been mucked about, messed with, injured and moped around as twelfth man, but he's not gone away. And for anyone who says that he doesn't look where the ball's going after he's released it - so what? He can't do much with it once he's let go, can he?

James Anderson: He’s not got a ‘knack’ for taking wickets – he’s just good at it

We’re still holding out for an England win with James Anderson leading the charge, but we’re not relishing the headlines if he manages it. We have two fairly major problems with the coverage of Anderson’s return.

Firstly, it is being portrayed as a return to form on top of a return to the side. Anybody who watched James Anderson bowl last year (as we did) knows that he never lost form. Virtually the only bad game he had was against South Africa last winter, which was fairly understandable being as he’d been standing around doing practically nothing for the preceding few weeks. He was only dropped from the Test side in the first place to accommodate Simon Jones. We weren’t sure about that at the time and it has taken a while for us to be convinced of Jones’ quality. However, Anderson wasn’t a bad bowler then and nor has he been since.

Secondly, it is often said that he has the ‘knack’ of taking wickets; that he can get people out with bad balls. This is only a whisker away from saying that he’s blessed with outrageous good luck, which is, if you consider it rationally, complete testicles. If a bowler consistently takes wickets, it’s with good reason – it’s because they’re talented. James Anderson bowls at a decent pace and he swings the ball a lot. He gets wickets with some deliveries which seem too full, but it isn’t a sudden blizzard of fortune that causes the batsman to edge the ball or miss it – it’s the swing.

So, to confirm: James Anderson – not lucky, just good.

England dull it up to the max.

England announced their squads for the tour of India today. We can't get too worked up about them.

To save you the trouble of reading them, we will provide you with the newsworthy inclusions and omissions.

Shaun Udal is in the Test squad thanks to his complete inability to take any wickets in Pakistan.

James Anderson isn't in the Test squad because the selectors want to grind him into the dirt to test his resilence. Then they want him to stand in front of all his old schoolmates and teachers and drop his trousers. Then and only then will he be considered for England's Test team. We think he's great.

Vikram Solanki is not in the one-day squad.

An extra spinner will be added to the Test squad nearer the time. Expect Monty Panesar to make the grade despite neither he nor previous spare spinner, Alex Loudon, having played a game since the last tour squad was selected.

Following Monty Panesar's selection, expect to read lots of stories about how he's a great spinner but that he can't bat or field. To save proper journalists the trouble of writing about this, simply search for old editorials about Phil Tufnell and just read 'Monty Panesar' instead of 'Phil Tufnell' in each of those ancient stories.