Jayawardena and Athers talk Broad and Anderson in The Zone
Thursday 9 June 2016 13:03, UK
Ian Ward was joined by Michael Atherton and Mahela Jayawardena in The Zone to discuss arguably England's greatest ever opening-bowling partnership.
James Anderson and Stuart Broad have played 85 Test matches together, taking 659 wickets, but how do they measure up against the past greats?
When asked whether Anderson and Broad are the best opening pair England have produced, Atherton said: "The only other people to challenge them would be Bob Willis and Ian Botham and maybe Fred Trueman and Brian Statham.
"If you think of other combinations, like Darren Gough and Andy Caddick, Matthew Hoggard and Steve Harmison and Harold Larwood and Bill Voce, but they only played four matches together.
"They're up there. Maybe Trueman and Statham are the only other combination to challenge them, but it would be hard to beat this current pair."
But what makes Anderson and Broad so difficult to face? Jayawardena explained the challenges a batsman faces when the England pair are in tandem.
"They're two different bowlers," the former Sri Lanka legend said. "Jimmy's much more of a swing bowler with control whereas Broad's got the height to create angles and he hits the deck hard to get the ball to seam.
"Both of them have evolved over the last four or five years in different conditions and they've learnt how to get batsmen out. For any batsman it's hard work, especially in [English] conditions."
Ahead of the third Test against Sri Lanka at Lord's, Nasser Hussain caught up with the No 1 and No 3 ranked Test bowlers in the world to discuss their new-ball partnership.
Broad said: "Where the partnership has grown is that we now realise when one of us is on a bit of a hot streak the other one can calm the other end down and make it impossible for the batsman to go anywhere - that's where the wickets come a bit quicker."
Anderson added: "He [Broad] is very smart on the field. He reads the game very well. I think the bowling unit we've got at the moment reads the game well. The captain needs that and the two of us working together, especially opening the bowling.
"When you read the game well, read the situations, you read what the batsman's thinking you can set fields and bowl a certain way, it certainly helps the team massively."
Are James Anderson and Stuart Broad England's greatest ever opening bowling partnership? Watch Ian Ward, Michael Atherton and Mahela Jayawardena discuss England's current new ball attack in The Zone in the video above!
