“It’s a nice feeling, a proud moment for me”

Image courtesy of: Zimbio

England pace bowler James Anderson has revealed that it was one of the best moments of his career when he became the 12th man and first English bowler in history to take 400 Test wickets.

Anderson accomplished the feat when he dismissed New Zealand opener Martin Guptill for a duck on the first day of the second Test at Headingley on Friday.

“It’s a nice feeling, a proud moment for me, I guess,” Anderson told Sky Sports. “I don’t know what else to say, it feels a bit surreal when you see the list up on the TV with all the guys who’ve got 400 in the past.”

However, despite removing Kane Williamson just two balls later, Anderson was not surprised to see New Zealand fight back and finish on 297/8 at the end of the day.

“The game’s moving forward, it’s not a shock that they scored as they did,” Anderson said. “When we didn’t bowl well they punished us. We’ve seen a bit of movement off the pitch, a tiny bit with the new ball, but if you get in on it you can score quite freely.”

Anderson also believes that England’s newfound positive approach and attitude is a major step in the right direction ahead of their highly-anticipated Ashes series against Australia in July.

“The players that we’ve got in the team, Mark Wood and Ben Stokes, they’re naturally attacking cricketers and they want to take wickets,” Anderson said. “We’ve seen Test cricket move forward with New Zealand scoring at such a rate, Australia are going to be aggressive when they come over here and we’re looking to play that same sort of cricket and fight fire with fire when it comes to that.

“It’s been a good period for me and Stuart Broad. We’ve always relied on bowling economically but seeing these guys come in is quite a fresh feel to the side which is good, I think.”