{"id":309476,"date":"2025-12-10T20:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T20:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/309476\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T20:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T20:03:09","slug":"england-bowling-attack-needs-leader-to-help-ben-stokes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/309476\/","title":{"rendered":"England bowling attack needs leader to help Ben Stokes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jimmy Anderson says England are missing a leader of their bowling attack in Australia \u2014 and has accused the present group of leaving their captain Ben Stokes high and dry. <\/p>\n

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\u2019s greatest bowler. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

England\u2019s 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 \u2014 both with bat and ball. But it is the lack of experience in the seam attack that has really caught Anderson\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n

\"Test<\/p>\n

Anderson, right, helped England to four Ashes series victories \u2014 including their last triumph on Australian soil<\/p>\n

BEN RADFORD\/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

\u201cThis England team is missing a leader in the attack. We don\u2019t 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,\u201d Anderson wrote in his Daily Mail column. <\/p>\n

\u201cStokesy can\u2019t do everything, but his bowlers in this squad aren\u2019t the kind of personalities who can help him out.\u201d <\/p>\n

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<\/a>, are the only two seamers in the squad with any experience of Ashes cricket down under.<\/p>\n

And Anderson, who won four Ashes series during his career, believes that inexperience and the players\u2019 quiet characters cost England dear in the eight-wicket second-Test defeat at the Gabba<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Anderson feels that England\u2019s bowlers are too reliant on Stokes for ideas<\/p>\n

DAVE HUNT\/EPA<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is not that communication that you need in a bowling group to do well. I don\u2019t see the bowlers going up to Stokes with ideas of what they want to do and plans to get wickets,\u201d he added. \u201cIt feels as if Stokes is having to do everything. What should be happening is a collective effort as a bowling group.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou 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\u2019t feel like that\u2019s there. It looks as if Stokes is on his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

Stuart Broad, for so long Anderson\u2019s partner in crime, gave a similar assessment during his on-air commentary at the Gabba last week. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the first time he [Stokes] has captained without an experienced bowler \u2014 even at Perth, he had Woody,\u201d Broad, 39, said. \u201cWithout 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\u2019t say a word. It didn\u2019t strike me that they were really on it, together as a tight-knit group sharing information.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jimmy Anderson says England are missing a leader of their bowling attack in Australia \u2014 and has accused…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-309476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}