'You always want to play against best': Anderson talks about missing battles with Kohli, learning from Zaheer and Bumrah

James Anderson is 41, but age hasn’t slowed him down one bit as the legendary cricketer continues to lead England’s charge in the ongoing five-match series as far as pace bowling is concerned. With eight wickets from three matches, Anderson is the highest wicket-taking England pacer. He, however, has been miles behind Jasprit Bumrah, who has 17 wickets and played a major role in India winning the series 3-1 with a match to go.

Anderson himself has been immensely impressed with Bumrah’s bowling and labelled his contemporary as a “world-class” bowler. In an exclusive interview with JioCinema, Anderson also spoke about missing his rivalry with Virat Kohli, learning from Zaheer Khan and touring India.

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Excerpts from the interview:

On whether the art of swing bowling is dying: I don’t think it’s dying. Because of the growth of white-ball cricket in recent times, the focus has moved to change of pace and different deliveries like yorkers, and things like that. But for me, in Test cricket, we’ve seen throughout this series already that swing can play a big part. The way Bumrah’s bowled, I think, has been amazing to watch. That reverse swing spell in the second Test was one of the best you’ll see. So for me, I think there’s still people out there wanting to learn the skills and it’s not easy to do.

On Jasprit Bumrah’s performance in the 2nd Test: With someone of his quality you expect that standard from him. You know that reverse swing can play a big part in India and he’s a great exponent of it. He’s got good pace and is very accurate, very consistent. That yorker we saw to Ollie Pope, he’s got that up his sleeve as well. It’s not a fluke that he’s got to number one in the world. He’s a world-class bowler and from our point of view we weren’t surprised that he put up a performance like that.

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On the quality of the Indian pace-bowling attack over the years: There are not many better bowlers than Bumrah, Shami and Siraj. They’re world-class bowlers. You put Ishant Sharma in there as well, and that’s a really strong bowling attack. For me, Zaheer Khan was someone I used to watch a lot to try and learn from. How he used the reverse swing, how he covered the ball when he ran into bowl, that’s something I tried to sort of develop on the back of playing against him quite a few times here.

On missing the battles with Virat Kohli: Yeah, you always want to play against the best players. And it’s been a shame that he’s not been a part of the series. We have had some great battles over the years. But not just for me, I think as a team you want to play against the best in the world and he certainly is that. I guess English fans will be thankful he’s not playing because he’s such a quality player. But from our point of view you want to test yourself, you want to come up against the best and he’s been someone who I’ve found really challenging to bowl at over the years and it’s a shame he’s not been playing.

On comparing his longevity to other sporting legends: Yeah, I guess you do look at things like that, but to be honest, I just go with the feel of me and my body. I don’t feel like I’m 41 years and 200 days old. You know, I still feel young. I can keep up with the young guys in training. I can still bowl the speeds that I want to, I can still deliver the skills that I want to. So, for me that’s the most important thing. The age is just a number and it’s pretty irrelevant from my thought process.

On passing on his wisdom to the younger players to tackle Indian conditions: Well, I think it’s really important as a senior player that you offer as much advice as possible, especially coming to a place where there’s quite a few guys in our team, that haven’t necessarily played that much out here. So, I think it’s important that you do offer advice but at the same time not trying to force yourself on them. I think it’s important that they’ve got to be asking questions as well, they’ve got to try and find their own way because it’s different for each player. I can’t say to an Ollie Robinson or a Gus Atkinson that this is how you should bowl here. They’re very different bowlers to me so they’ve got to find what works for them and if I can offer any advice to help them along the way then great.

On his memories of touring India over the years: The 2012 series, when we came here, is probably the biggest one. I don’t think an English team had won for quite a long time here – for 20 odd years. So, for us to win here, it was probably one of the best series wins that I’ve been involved in, in my career. You know, it was just a great team performance. The batters turned up when we needed them. We had good spinners as well on that trip, which helped. So, I think that for me is right up there.

Catch all the live action from India vs England – 5th Test, Day 1 on March 7, Thursday, 9:30 AM onwards, LIVE & Exclusive on JioCinema, Sports18 1 (SD +HD) and Colors Cineplex (SD+HD)