James Anderson leaves behind Dennis Lillee and Chaminda Vaas

Just after opening his wickets tally for England in the ongoing first Test against India, James Anderson achieved a personal landmark. By getting Shikhar Dhawan caught behind the wicket, Anderson took his tally to 356 wickets surpassing both Vaas and Lillee. He is now the 19th highest wicket taker in Tests. He is also the second highest wicket taker in Test matches for England after the great all-rounder Ian Botham. Anderson also completed 50 wickets at Trent Bridge which is the most number of wickets by any bowler in the ground.

Anderson charging

Though Anderson was not particularly brisk in reaching this milestone. However, he took lesser matches than the Sri Lankan seamer Vaas. Comparing him to Lillee won’t be right though as Lillee reached 355 wickets in an astonishing 70 matches which is why he is still considered one of the best bowlers in Test cricket despite so many more having taken more wickets than him. Vaas, on the other hand took 111 matches to amass the same number of wickets. But if you compare the averages, you’ll see that Anderson has done pretty well for himself as he averages a healthy 30.39, while both Vaas and Lillee have averages of 29.58 and 23.92 respectively.

Anderson is specially known for being effective as one of the best bowlers of reverse swing in Test cricket currently along with Dale Steyn and Zaheer Khan and with him remaining fit unlike his Indian counterpart, it is expected that he will play steadily for England to pick up even more wickets in future, considering that he doesn’t completely lose his magic touch with the old ball.

The Indian captain decided to go with four seamers on what looks like a very flat pitch which would have otherwise better suited a specialist off-spinner like Ashwin who would have made the side perfectly balanced along with Jadeja and three specialist seamers.