Summer run heartens Anderson

James Anderson has enjoyed a personal triumph with his best summer for England and the NatWest Series against South Africa still to come.

Lancashire pace bowler Anderson, 26, featured in all seven npower Tests in a summer for the first time in his career and his current stretch of nine matches is also his longest spell in the team.

He began the international season by revealing his mental struggles at the top level and has responded by finishing as England’s most prolific bowler both against the South Africans and New Zealand.

Now he needs only eight more victims in two matches in India this winter to clock up 50 Test wickets in a calendar year.

Speaking at the launch of npower’s third urban cricket facility in Highgate Park, Birmingham, Anderson said: “I would be delighted with that.

“I have really enjoyed this summer: the ball has been coming out beautifully, the speeds have stayed reasonably high and I have been taking wickets pretty consistently.

James Anderson has claimed 42 Test wickets so far in 2008

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“Milestones are lovely when they come along but my main target is to keep my place in the team.

“If I am taking wickets then they cannot leave me out, that is how I have looked at it.”

Prior to the Lord’s Test against New Zealand, Anderson confessed he struggled to claw things back when he started badly.

It was something that had plagued his five years at the top but not resurfaced this summer.

“Confidence plays a major part in anyone’s game,” Anderson said. “In the past I have doubted myself. “But I now know I’m a good bowler who can perform at this level; I have just been telling myself how good I am.

“I can think of a couple of times I have struggled a little bit, during the first innings against New Zealand at Old Trafford.

“Apart from that I can’t think of any time that I have felt like I have not bowled well or been in the game.

“It’s mainly down to me - I’m the only guy that can keep drilling it into myself.”

Like most of his competition for a place among the pace unit, Anderson has been troubled by injury throughout his career, most notably when a stress fracture of the back sidelined him for the 2006 international season.

But playing all seven matches has increased his belief he can ward off the claims of Ryan Sidebottom and Simon Jones, two men currently outside the team.

“It has also given me confidence that I have maintained my fitness, which has helped keep my speeds up,” he said. “Four Tests in five weeks is a good physical challenge and I came through that.

“We still have Sid (Sidebottom) to come back and Simon Jones is knocking hard on the door, which is a good position to be in.”