Western Australia v England

E-mail this Article

Print this Article

Subscribe to RSS Feed

Anderson - pushing for a Test place.

By Myles Hodgson, PA Sport Cricket Correspondent, Perth

James Anderson strengthened his claim to remain in England's team for the third Test with a superb display and three wickets against Western Australia.

The Lancashire seamer was perhaps the most vulnerable of the tourists' attack as they consider making changes for next week's clash with Australia.

But selected in a 12-man line-up for the two-day match against Western Australia, England's final warm-up match before the Test, Anderson was the pick of the attack as the tourists restricted their hosts to 309 for eight on the opening day.

Anderson set the tone with a superb opening spell of 9-2-9-1, making the breakthrough in the ninth over when opener David Bandy edged behind to Chris Read, who was given the wicketkeeping role while Jones played as a specialist batsman.

England should have built on that breakthrough with Steve Harmison striking in the next over, but opener Chris Rogers was missed by Ashley Giles at second slip.

Rogers, who played for Northamptonshire last summer, made England pay for that miss by going on to hit seven fours in his 66 before becoming Anderson's second victim.

Fellow Lancashire seamer Sajid Mahmood also impressed and claimed two wickets by inducing Marsh into edging behind in his second over and claimed a second victim four overs later when Western Australia captain Marcus North edged to Ed Joyce at second slip.

Left-arm spinner Monty Panesar's desire to make an impression was underlined with several passionate appeals for lbw before tea, resulting in him snatching his sweater from umpire Bob Bennett at the end of one over in anger at failing to secure his first wicket.

But he made amends for that temporary loss of composure by having dangerous strokemaker Luke Ronchi caught low at slip by acting captain Andrew Strauss, and then surprised the sparse crowd by running out Aaron Heel after swooping from mid-wicket.

Anderson completed a successful day for himself by claiming Brett Dorey as his third victim when he collected a simple return catch.

While Anderson impressed with figures of three for 47, Harmison endured another disappointing day and had to wait until his 14th over before claiming his first victim.

The Durham paceman finished with figures of one for 99 from 21 overs while Giles also struggled and finished wicketless after his eight overs cost 33 runs.