England’s bowling spearhead, James Anderson couldn’t manage to scalp the Indian skipper Virat Kohli in the series opener of the 5-match series, but the pacer is not willing to give up on his hopes of getting the better of the batsman. He is looking forward to pulling out some new weapons from his armory in the second Test between India and England gets underway at Lord’s on Thursday.
Writing in his column for The Sun, Anderson pointed out that despite the dropped catch and other close chances he had against the batsman, Virat a century and a fifty, and because of that he is willing to find new ways to get Kohli out in the second Test and thereafter.
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Jimmy explained, “I felt good bowling to Virat and my plans worked well. I might have dismissed him a few times with some plays and misses plus a dropped catch. But the fact is, I didn’t get him out and he scored a century and a half-century. In fact, it makes me even more determined to be on top form in the Second Test at Lord’s. I will look at some videos to see if I can do anything different. I think all our bowlers were good against Kohli. Before he went into one-day mode while batting with the tail, we kept him in check.”
Speaking on the rivalry he shares with Virat, Anderson pointed out that although the two remain extremely competitive people when it comes to facing each other, there’s also plenty of respect between them.
The pacer elaborated, “Kohli is ranked the world’s No 1 Test batsman after scoring 200 runs in the First Test and I’m the top-ranked bowler. I guess that’s top-of-the-range stuff and I certainly loved the battle with him at Edgbaston. The game was played in a good spirit and there’s a lot of respect both ways between myself and Virat. There was the odd smile when I bowled a good ball and the odd smile from him. I gave him a couple of freebies on his legs that he clipped for four and he said something like ‘That’s not like you, giving me freebies!’ It was teasing, really, leg-pulling. All in good spirit.”
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Anderson and Kohli’s kick-started during India’s 2014 tour of England where the fast bowler dismissed Kohli four times in 10 innings. Prior to the start of this series, James fired the first shot when he claimed that the Indian skipper was ‘lying’ if he said that if India is winning than his runs do not matter to him.
