Pace bowler James Anderson from the former England cricket team revealed about bowling to two of India’s contemporary greats – Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli. Former England cricket team pace bowler James Anderson revealed about bowling to two of India’s contemporary greats – Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli.
Anderson, who is the most successful fast bowler in the history of Test cricket, dismissed Sachin 9 times and Virat 7 times during his career. When asked about the most difficult batter to bowl to, Anderson ended up picking Virat over Sachin. Anderson clarified that while he had the better of Virat in their initial encounter in 2014, the Indian batsman came back strongly and maintained a favourable record against the pacer. Sachin, by contrast, did not share such a vicious confrontation with him and there was never a dramatic ‘shift in dominance’.
I did well early against Kohli, the first time he toured England in 2014. I actually took advantage of his outside off-stump weakness, and then the second time I played against him – he must have gone back and practised that – he was an entirely different player.
He genuinely had shifted his game to another level, making it extremely tough for not only me but bowlers as a whole. I got him out 4-5 times in the first series and then failed to get him out in the next that I played against him,” Anderson explained on the talkSport podcast.
“Against Sachin, say, I didn’t think there was such a change in dominance. With Kohli, there certainly was. Found him a very hard guy to bowl at as he had that steely presence of mind, and wanted to get into a fight. He’s very competitive and once that initial triumph, it was very hard to win an argument against.”
Anderson and Kohli also had a series of on-field arguments over the years including an intense one in 2021. The England great described how Virat was a different personality compared to Sachin before detailing how their personalities also influenced their rivalries against him.
“Kohli was a bit of a different character from Sachin. Sachin was extremely soft, gentlemanly; and extremely composed at the crease. Virat was more emotional. Wore his heart on his sleeve and you can sort of see it. In captaining him when I celebrated his wickets.
I tried as much as possible to eliminate that feeling out of the equation and just try and think of him as a batsman and not think as much about who it was. It was not easy sometimes; we had a lot of battles on the field,” observed Anderson.
