James Anderson put in a match-winning performance in the first Test of the ongoing Ashes series © Getty Images
Aug 19, 2013
England speedster James Anderson has made his intention of playing the fifth Test clear by writing in his column that he is not worn out and hopes the ECB doesn’t rest him for the fifth and final Test to be played at The Oval.
Despite the final game being a dead rubber after England retained the Ashes in Old Trafford, Anderson wants to continue playing and keep his rhythm going when the teams meet again in Australia in a few months’ time.
Anderson, who put on a match-winning performance in the first Test at Trent Bridge, has not been as effective ever since.
As the leader of the attack, there are calls for the board to give him due rest before another series of five Tests begins later this year. However, he feels the need to feature at the Oval and try to revive his form.
“I desperately want to play in the fifth Test, not only to finish what we started but also to try to rediscover the form that I admit has not been as I would have liked in the last couple of matches,” Anderson wrote in his column for the Daily Mail.
“I know it is pretty impossible to perform at 100 per cent in every match, but I’m my own harshest critic and, by the standards I set myself, I did not bowl as well as I can at Old Trafford or the Riverside. That makes me want to play this week to try to find out what has been missing and work out how I can get it back.”
“Physically, there is nothing to suggest I need a rest. I am nowhere near the state of exhaustion that hit me when I was left out of the side in the last World Cup in India and Sri Lanka, when, at the end of a winter which included our brilliant but draining 2010-11 Ashes tour, I more or less hit the wall,” he added.