England’s star pacer James Anderson has rubbished the rumors of his retirement from Test cricket and reiterated that he is determined to carrying on playing for England till his body permits.
The 38-year-old is the highest wicket-taker for England in Tests with 590 wickets to his name in 154 Tests. However, an average of 41.16 with the ball in three matches this summer and bouts with injuries, prompted many to believe that he might be considering hanging up his boots.
"No, absolutely not. I am still hungry to play the game. The frustration for me has been after one bad game, the whispers that go around. I don't think that's fair,” Anderson was quoted by Cricbuzz.
He however admitted that he needed to bowl better than what he did against Pakistan in the first Test of the three-match series at Manchester. He picked up one wicket for 97 runs for the match and admitted to becoming "emotional" and "frustrated", emotions which then fed into his bowling.
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"It's been a frustrating week for me personally because I have not bowled very well, I felt out of rhythm. Probably for the first time in ten years, I got a little bit emotional on the field, started getting frustrated, let that get to me a little bit. When you get frustrated and a little bit angry, you try and bowl quicker and quicker. That doesn't help on the field,” he said.
"For me, it's a case of trying to work really hard the next couple of days, try to figure out of there are any technical issues I can sort out. Hope that I get the nod for the next game and I can try and show people I have still got what it takes to play Test cricket. To be honest, coming into this game I felt good, but during the game, there was something off - the rhythm wasn't quite there. As I went through the game I just tried to start bowling quicker, run in faster, bowled a couple of no-balls which isn't like me really. It felt like I was trying a bit too hard,” Anderson added.
"I was chatting to Chris Silverwood and Pop Welch about some basics, making sure my action is where I want it to be and finding that timing. Hopefully, I can continue this week and keep my fingers crossed that the captain and coach keep faith with me for the next game. I think also I didn't feel like I bowled poorly in the West Indies series. I felt good with the way the ball was coming out, and don't think too many changes with one bad game,” Anderson said about his recent record with the ball.
“Everyone has a bad game, I'm sure I will have more bad games. It's trying to keep a positive mental attitude, focus on the next game, put everything else behind. When you play well you can't dwell on that either, you have to put it behind and focus on what's coming up,” the leading Test wicket-taking pacer said.
Earlier in the year, Anderson had said that he wants to play for as long as possible as he retained the desire to do so and he once again reiterated his commitment to trying to make the Ashes series in Australia next winter.
(Cricbuzz.com inputs)
