Thank you Jimmy

Good afternoon fellow travellers, I hope this finds you well.

It’s been an emotional week of Test Cricket as legend and master seam and swing bowler James Anderson has been playing in his last ever game for England. In a career that’s seen Jimmy play 188 Test Matches, take 701 Test wickets (and counting), 260 ODI wickets despite retiring from white ball cricket in 2015, scoring an 81 against India, and the most wickets of any bowler at Lords, to name just a few achievements. Frankly, it would take too long to list all the remarkable achievements stretching out over 21 years.

Alas, all good things have to come to an end, even if you really, really don’t want them to and as the greatest pace bowler of all time stood to sing ‘God save the King’ for one last time, I’m not ashamed to admit, I had a manly, patriotic tear in my eye.

There is of course a Test match to think about as well as saying farewell to the Burnley Express. England won the toss and decided under gloomy, grey London skies to bowl first.

Day 1 belong to England, much like day 2 and 3, belonged to England. West Indies dug in at first but England made their breakthrough via not the great man Jimmy Anderson but debutant fast Gus Atkinson, clean bowling WI captain Kraigg Brathwaite. After that Windies batters fell steadily and without much fuss.

The bowling force was passed from the master to the young Padawan Gus Atkinson, picking up another 6 wickets to claim 7 in the innings. Woakes and Stokes picked up and wicket each and then the man of the moment Jimmy Anderson finished the job to bowl Windies out for just 121. Bare in mind, this is a test match, not a T20!

England batted a few overs on day 1, building a good base and then came back on day 2 intending to achieve a huge score and bat Windies out of the game. Zak Crawley top scored on 76. England’s other debutant in the test, batter/keeper Jamie Smith opened his England career with 70 and the Yorkshire duo of Joe Root and Harry Brook put on 68 and 50 respectively. As the saying goes, strong Yorkshire, strong England. The Lions were eventually bowled out for 371, giving the Kings Men and lead of 250.

With time left in day 2 for the very last time The Burnley Express opened the bowling for England and claimed the wickets of Kraigg Braithwaite and Alick Athanaze.

When day 3 began this morning at 11am the emotions were high. England needed just 5 wickets to win the game and a barrel load of runs in which to do it in……..this is the last day we will ever see James Anderson in English Whites. Jimmy picked up 1 more wicket to bring his career Test total to 704. Skipper Ben Stokes claimed another 2, it’s brilliant to see him bowling at full strength again after his knee surgery……..I might have to get the number of his surgeon! Gus Atkinson had another brilliant day in what has been a fantastic and from an English prospective, very promising debut. Atkinson claimed another 5 wicket hall and secured 12 wickets in the game.

England won the first test by an innings and 114 runs, an all round routing of West Indies and had 2 young, exciting players debut. More importantly, at least for today, the greatest seam bowler of all time, The Burnley Express, James ‘Jimmy’ Anderson has retired from international cricket. He played his last game like he played them all, with understated brilliance, professionalism, fire and humanity. He had retired the more successful fast bowler the sport has ever seen and the 3rd most successful bowler of all time. The contribution Jimmy has made to English and World cricket cannot be over stated and singed off his international playing career by raising a glass to his fans and downing the pint of Guinness within it, what a man…….its just a shame he’s from Lancashire.

Northern Diamonds sparkled in York

We are smack bang in the middle of the English season and teams representing Yorkshire Gloriana have been playing in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy and Vitality Blast.

Northern Diamonds put Sunrisers to the sword on Wednesday over at Clifton Park in York. With grey skies over head the Yorkshire lasses won the toss and put Sunrisers into bat, it’s fair to say they didn’t take best advantage of their 50 overs. Jo Gardener started promisingly and topped scored going at a run a ball but was caught out on just 21. After the fall of Gardener the rest of the tourist folded like a fireworks shop on the 6th of November and were all out for 106.

The Northern Diamonds in their innings came out with good intent and although they did lose hand full of wickets, Diamonds are the hardest type of stone, they usually survive. With solid knocks from Captain Holly Armitage (33) and Erin Burns (35) the Diamonds had the total overhauled and the game won in less than 25 overs.

The Yorkshire Vikings also picked up a solid victory over northern rivals Durham this week but we’ll wait to discuss them after the Roses fixture tonight at 7pm against Lancashire. Come on Yorkshire!

Most Rachael Heyhoe Flint and T20 Blast games are available to watch for free on YouTube, just search for the club that’s hosting the fixtures and if it’s not on Sky, there’ll be a live stream.

The T20 cycle begins again

As the 2 year T20 World Cup cycle spools back into life the sub regional qualifiers have been taking place. This week in Germany (good to see there’s been some proper international sport in Germany this month!) the European qualifiers started. I’m not going to pretend this is the best quality cricket you’ll ever watch, but it’s cracking good fun! On Tuesday Germany mullered the ball around the Bayer Uerdingen Cricket Ground for 220 and Sweden in response came within 2 runs of drawing the game, finishing their 20 over on 218. The same afternoon Jersey crunched out 219 runs and then had Switzerland all out for 52. If you’re after exciting, low stakes cricket then this is the stuff and it’s all available, for free, on the ICC website. Belgium Vs Serbia is on now and Belgium are going well!

That’s it for another week. There’s been loads of Blast cricket, loads of RHF cricket and loads of international stuff but I can’t talk about it all. Score cards for pretty much everything are available on the BBC sports app if you want to know how your team are doing.

I’ll be back next week with whatever I’ve found most interesting, I hope you’ll join me then.

All the best,

Nick