At about 4.30pm on the second day in Nottingham a small pocket of England supporters over in the Fox Road Stand began chanting Jimmy Anderson’s name. It said a bit about the esteem in which the great man is held, clearly, but in this first week of his retirement, a bit more about the wickets column on the scoreboard next to them.
Anderson was perched on a balcony at the time and possibly happy to be there with his feet up. It was hard graft out there for his mentees, with hot sunshine, a flat pitch and some scraggy, repeatedly replaced Dukes balls offering them little by way of assistance. More importantly for both West Indies and the series, there were also two batters rallying hard to trigger this restlessness from the home crowd.
