Anderson still has plenty to give

29 Oct 2015 | Cricket
James Anderson is targeting another five years of international cricket - although he admits his next outing in an England shirt could be a testing one.
The 33-year-old is England's leading Test wicket-taker with 420 wickets from his 109 appearances.

Three of those scalps came in Dubai last week, but Anderson was unable to prevent England slipping to a late defeat which leaves them 1-0 down in the series.

However, he is determined to help force a series draw when the third and final Test begins in Sharjah on Sunday.

I think I'm noticing the quality of beds more now, and how my back pulls up after a dodgy night's sleep, he said.

People keep mentioning the age, and everything, so you do think about it.

(But) I feel fit and strong - and I'm really enjoying it.

I'm loving it at the minute, loving bowling, loving playing, enjoying taking wickets and the challenges we've got ahead.

Why can't I play for another five years? I'm going to keep going till my body can't take any more.

Anderson's body might be feeling the after-effects of Sharjah more than either of the first two Tests.

The seamer has drawn on all his skills in Abu Dhabi and Dubai to induce mistakes on placid pitches, but he expects Sharjah to be even better for batting.

It's renowned for being the flatter of the three, he said.

Our stat man was very kind to put a few things up on the wall about seam movement and swing percentages at the start of the series - and Sharjah was 3% seam movement, which was pretty depressing from a bowler's point of view.

So if I bowled 100 balls, three of them would seam.

A batting collapse on the third morning in Dubai was highlighted by both captain Alastair Cook and Head Coach Trevor Bayliss as the reason for England's defeat in the desert last time out.

And Anderson believes the tourists can take plenty of heart from the cricket they have played so far in the United Arab Emirates, having come up marginally short of victory in the series opener and then coming within 39 balls of saving the game in the second Test.

We've played nine good days of cricket and one horrendous session when we shot ourselves in the foot, Anderson added. That has put us in this position where we are 1-0 down.

(But) we still feel quite positive - because we've played some good cricket, and it could be 1-1 or 1-0 to us in different circumstances.

We know we can bat out here. It was just that one session. For me, from the sidelines, it looked a bit frenetic - like the beans were going and guys were a little bit nervous out there.

We've been here four or five weeks, and it's some of the guys' first experience of these conditions - you've got to cut them a little bit of slack.

There will be times when you might have a collapse like that, and now we've got to learn from that.

If we do see that sort of thing happen again, we can nip it in the bud.