Jimmy Anderson says England are missing a leader of their bowling attack in Australia — and has accused the present group of leaving their captain Ben Stokes high and dry.
Anderson, 43, retired from Tests in July 2024 when the leadership group of Stokes, head coach Brendon McCullum and managing director Rob Key made it clear they were planning to move on from England’s greatest bowler.
Anderson subsequently spent time as the fast-bowling consultant for the Test side before leaving that role this year to focus on continuing his county career with Lancashire.
England’s Bazball approach was clearly focused on bringing raw pace to Australia this winter to try to win the Ashes down under for the first time since 2010-11. So far in the first two Tests of the series, England have looked all at sea — both with bat and ball. But it is the lack of experience in the seam attack that has really caught Anderson’s eye.
Anderson, right, helped England to four Ashes series victories — including their last triumph on Australian soil
BEN RADFORD/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES
“This England team is missing a leader in the attack. We don’t have a captain of the bowlers any more, someone checking in on the group, bouncing ideas around, making sure everyone is working together and coherently backing each other up,” Anderson wrote in his Daily Mail column.
“Stokesy can’t do everything, but his bowlers in this squad aren’t the kind of personalities who can help him out.”
Jofra Archer, Brydon Carse, Matthew Potts, Josh Tongue and the recently called-up Matthew Fisher are all playing their first Test series in Australia. Indeed, Stokes and Mark Wood, who featured in the opening match but has since been ruled out of the rest of the tour, are the only two seamers in the squad with any experience of Ashes cricket down under.
And Anderson, who won four Ashes series during his career, believes that inexperience and the players’ quiet characters cost England dear in the eight-wicket second-Test defeat at the Gabba.
Anderson feels that England’s bowlers are too reliant on Stokes for ideas
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“There is not that communication that you need in a bowling group to do well. I don’t see the bowlers going up to Stokes with ideas of what they want to do and plans to get wickets,” he added. “It feels as if Stokes is having to do everything. What should be happening is a collective effort as a bowling group.
“You have got to be talking to each other all the time. How are we trying to get wickets? What is working on this pitch? Exchanging ideas. Encouraging each other all the time. It doesn’t feel like that’s there. It looks as if Stokes is on his own.
“I don’t see many chats between Stokes and Harry Brook, the vice-captain. In a good team, we need everyone to be having good ideas. But our bowlers are not characters like that.
Stuart Broad, for so long Anderson’s partner in crime, gave a similar assessment during his on-air commentary at the Gabba last week.
“It’s the first time he [Stokes] has captained without an experienced bowler — even at Perth, he had Woody,” Broad, 39, said. “Without someone in the bowling attack who can just suggest little things, little nuggets in the game that can help Stokesy, it just struck me today that there were a lot of times where Archer might be at mid-on, Atkinson deep cover, Carse bowling and they wouldn’t say a word. It didn’t strike me that they were really on it, together as a tight-knit group sharing information.”