The body is sore, the mind frayed and frazzled by four ultimately fruitless days in the dirt but the smile on James Anderson’s face is broad. It is the morning after the night before; his long-awaited return to competitive cricket in the colours of Lancashire complete. Victory may not quite have come against Derbyshire but England’s greatest ever Test bowler is back doing what he loves – and the only thing, really, that he has had to know how to do since his late teenage years.
“My body definitely knows I’ve started playing again – it was tough getting out of bed this morning,” he grimaces before the grin returns. “But I absolutely loved it.”
