Baby-Faced Assassin

A trundler in village cricket bowling with cows inbackdrop to a pace sensation holding the fate of his nation, James Anderson hascome a long way.

Drafted into an injury plagued England side on tour toAustralia a couple of months ago, Anderson made a quick impression in thetriangular series down under scalping 13 wickets in nine games and showed hisremarkable upsurge by sinking Pakistan in a critical Pool A match.

Anderson burst onto the scene this summer after a goodpre-season trip to South Africa where, on decent batting strips he was troublingbatsmen with pace.

His first international wicket was of Adam Gilchrist inthe second match of the tri-series and he then claimed two for 48 against SriLanka, scalping their champion captain Sanath Jayasuriya.

But the baby faced fast bowler showed his true coloursin the World Cup, swinging out nine batsmen in three games including thesensational four wickets against Pakistan conceding just 29 runs.

In a short time, the 20-year-old has got into the goodbooks of his captain Nasser Hussain who doesn't suffer fools and has all thetime for cricketers who can think on their feet.

"James has bowled very well in his short career,he's gone from Burnley third XI to regular man-of-the-match awards, but the mostimpressive thing I saw standing at mid-off is that he has listened to what thecoach has had to say and puts into practice everything we've discussed in teammeetings," Hussain said.

"He is not just bowling well, he's thinking well, too." Hussain had inmind the delivery that accounted for Yousuf Youhana, who along with Inzamam-ulHaq was the key to Pakistan's chance of overhauling England's 246 for eight.

Inzamam had departed for a duck, edging a swingingdelivery to Nick Knight at third slip from the fifth ball of Anderson's secondover.

As Youhana took guard and Hussain concentrated onadjusting the field for the final ball of the over, Anderson walked back to thetop of his bowling mark and recalled a conversation earlier in the week withcoach Duncan Fletcher.

"He said a few of their batters were susceptibleto yorkers so I just thought I would try it," Anderson explained.

The result of his effort was a delivery, travelling ataround 85mph, which moved some six inches in the last 10 ft of its flight fromthe line of leg stump to hit the base of middle.

"It came out perfectly," he said with a grin.

Hussain was nearly as surprised as the batsman."I'd completely forgotten about it actually, but Duncan did say thatYouhana was prone to shuffle across his stumps early on," he said.

"I was thinking about the field for the newbatsman and as I was doing it James just ran in and bowled the perfect yorker."It was a delivery that either of Pakistan's 'sultans of swing', Wasim Akram andWaqar Younis, would have been proud of.

This time last year Anderson had not made hisfirst-class debut and he is still coming to terms with his rapid progress frombeing a Lancashire League rookie to darling of England's fans.

"Everything has happened so quick I'm still pinching myself to make sureit's happening, but it is starting to sink in slowly," Anderson said.

"In that atmosphere, with the adrenalin going, Idon't think I would ever get tired." Nowadays England are going for sheerpace. They have used Simon Jones and Steve Harmison in recent games, andinfluential voices managed to bend the ear of national coach Duncan Fletcherabout the Burnley whiz-kid.

Sky TV's commentary team, including ex-England coachDavid Lloyd, have pushed Anderson's name hard. Bob Willis, who knows a thing ortwo about what it takes to make a Test bowler said: "Remember the name -James Anderson." But it was also interesting to hear what Yorkshire's newAussie star Matthew Elliott thought about him after Anderson had trapped theleft-hander lbw in the Old Trafford Roses match, depriving him of a century onhis Yorkshire debut.

"I like the look of him - he is quick and canswing the ball as well."

PTI