I have new run-up for India tour after disappointing Ashes

‘I don’t think I bowled poorly in the Ashes, but I wasn’t threatening’

He has not played competitively since the Oval Ashes Test and did not pick up the ball again until October. Now he is back refreshed and ready to go to India for five Tests where conditions will be even harder for seamers than anything they faced in the Ashes when the series starts in Hyderabad on January 25. To help himself, Anderson has decided that after 183 Tests, 690 wickets and over 20 years in international cricket, he needs to reshape that most fundamental aspect of a bowler’s technique: the run-up. The rest of us might not notice a discernible change, but to him it feels different.

“I’ve tried to look at the Ashes honestly. I don’t think I bowled poorly, but at the same time I didn’t feel threatening either,” he tells Telegraph Sport. “The ball didn’t swing. The pitches were not particularly suitable to me but taking wickets when conditions are not in my favour is something I have prided myself on in the past. India is a place where conditions will not be in favour of the seamers but I’ve been there before and had success, so I’m just trying to marry all that up and make sure I’m in a really good place.

“My run-up is the main thing, just trying to make sure it is better. One thing that was not right was my run-up speed. I can’t rely on that fast twitch snap at the crease that I’ve had over the years so I’ve been working on my momentum in my run-up to get speed that way. That feels like it is working really well, the ball is coming out really well and I just need to transfer that outdoors now.

“Something that has worked well for me is mixing up training, making sure it is not doing the same thing over and over. Things like working on running technique and speed I have to do a bit more than most people now getting to the age I am at. I have to cover every base to make sure when I get to India I am in a good place.”

‘I don’t see why I should finish just because of my age’

Broad’s absence will not be hugely felt by Anderson, because retirement was a gradual phasing out. Broad did not go to Pakistan last winter and both were rotated in recent years. It did, however, put Anderson’s future in the spotlight, and he was a little nervous over whether he would be given another central contract. A one-year deal was offered and accepted.

“Sounds brutal but you just have to move on,” he says of Broad. “No thought has crossed my mind about finishing. I’m getting a lot of people coming up to me saying congrats on a great career but I keep having to explain that was Stuart, not me.