43-year-old James Anderson takes five wickets in County Championship opener

Riding on half-centuries from Luke Wells (87), Josh Bohannon (90), and Michael Jones (71), Lancashire had finished day one of the County Championship Division 2 game at Northampton on 346-7 after Anderson had won the toss and elected to bat. They were bowled out for 384 on the second morning as Ben Sanderson finished with 5-79. Batting at No.11, Anderson remained unbeaten without scoring.

Anderson let Tom Bailey take the first over, and opened bowling from the other end. They struck once each early to reduce Northamptonshire to 20-2. Anderson then ended Ricardo Vasconcelos’ counterattack and struck twice more, leaving the hosts reeling at 41-5. They recovered to 103-5 before slumping to 110-7.

Louis Kimber, who had

rewritten the record books with his iconic 127-ball 143 in 2024, now gave Lancashire the charge to score 33 in 31 balls in a stand of 53. Anderson broke the stand by clean bowling Kimber. The wicket also gave him his 56th five-wicket haul in first-class cricket, matching the tally of (among others) Richie Benaud, John Snow, and R Ashwin.

Among Test cricketers with 200 Test wickets, Ian Botham (59) is next, then Saqlain Mushtaq (60). Anderson’s last five-wicket haul in the format, 7-35 against Nottinghamshire, was back in 2024.

Sanderson (22) helped add another 34 for the ninth wicket. At the time of writing, Northamptonshire were 201-9 with wicketkeeper Lewis McManus (41) and last man Harry Conway (0) at the crease. They need another 34 runs to avoid the follow-on. Anderson has figures of 5-64, and Bailey has 3-46.

It is worth mentioning that Anderson’s last professional match, against Middlesex in the County Championship, was more than six months ago.