A sudden burst of joy, however, upset the West Indies’ plans to honor England’s legendary bowler James Anderson with a guard of honour on day two of the first Test match at Lord’s.
On Thursday, Anderson, a fast bowler who is playing his 188th Test and has already taken a record-breaking 703 Test wickets as one, came out to bat in what is his last match in an English shirt.
The team that fields in these situations usually form a guard if honour around the retiring cricketer. However, just before the 41-year—old Anderson walked out to a standing ovation from the packed crowd at Lord’s, Mikyle Louis executed a brilliant run out to dismiss Shoaib Bashir, triggering exuberant celebrations among the West Indies players.
Therefore when he emerged from the pavilion only former West Indies skipper Jason Holder was there to greet him with a handshake.
At stumps on day two West Indies were 171 runs behind with only four wickets left making it near certain that this would be Anderson’s final batting innings for England.
“”We spoke about it before he came out to bat, that we were going to give him a guard of honour,” AFP quoted West Indian fast bowler Jayden Seales as saying.
“Obviously the run out took us all the way down to Swiss Cottage (the neighbouring district in northwest London to St John’s Wood, in which Lord’s is located), so it was pretty hard to do the guard of honour for the great man. Luckily Jason caught up with him.”
However that did not happen because debutant Jamie Smith (70) fell as England’s last wicket without even offering Anderson any more balls.
“I think my biggest disappointment was not seeing Jimmy face one off their left-arm spinner,” said Smith.
“That’s ultimately what let me down about my innings. It’s been an honour playing with him. Everyone will miss him when he goes. If we’re in a position where he has to bat in the second innings, I’d be a bit worried, so hopefully he can get wickets with the ball instead.”
Anderson, England captain Ben Stokes and debutant Gus Atkinson each picked up two wickets as the West Indies collapsed to 79 for 6 by close of play on Thursday. This followed their poor first innings total of 121 in the first Test of the three-match series.
