England bowler James Anderson says Australia have problems with their battery of quicks -- if you look beyond the trio who have taken the Ashes back from his side
England bowler James Anderson says Australia have problems with their battery of quicks -- if you look beyond the trio who have taken the Ashes back from his side. Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins have taken 45 wickets between them already to help the Baggy Green regain the urn with two Tests to spare.
James Anderson
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The three men have regularly topped 90mph with their deliveries -- something England's attack has not. That has led to an inquest about the state of English bowling and a lack of raw pace. Anderson is England's leading wicket-taker with 12 -- more than Cummins -- but six of them came in his preferred swinging conditions in Adelaide where a lack of pace mattered little.
Even so, support from elsewhere has been lacking -- Stuart Broad has five, Chris Woakes seven and plucky debutant Craig Overton six -- but it is England's inability to hunt in a pack, and quickly, which has hurt them the most. But Anderson says the hosts would have problems if their leading trio were missing.
" They've had three bowlers who all can bowl 90mph," he said.
" They've stayed fit for all three games. But you look beyond that, they've got problems.
" There's (James) Pattinson injured, (Nathan) Coulter-Nile injured -- they've all been injured for a while. They've not got much other than these three that are bowling at the minute.
" I think we've got to be careful. Obviously we want to produce guys who can bowl 90mph but I don't think we should take away from what we've got.
" We've got some very skillful bowlers, we've just come up against a team that are better than us this series."
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