Top status dominates England’s thoughts

England will make no concession to any spectres of 2010 when they set out in defence of their world-beating Test status against Pakistan.

James Anderson knows he cannot afford to be a slave to diplomacy and therefore risk allowing the spot-fixing sins of Pakistan’s past to compromise his natural aggression as a fast bowler over the next three weeks.

Kevin Pietersen is similarly insistent that Andrew Strauss’s England will be unfettered by fears that ill-feeling could resurface between these two teams, after three Pakistan players corrupted their sport by agreeing to the bowling of no-balls as part of an attempted illegal gambling coup at Lord’s 17 months ago.

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When they take the field for the first of three Tests at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Tuesday, it will also be the first time – save for a World Cup warm-up match in Fatullah last March – that England and Pakistan have met since the end of that poisonous summer.

The three criminals of 2010 will thankfully be absent, of course, serving jail sentences in England and long International Cricket Council bans too.

But many of the innocent parties on either side, all caught up in the aftermath to different degrees, remain.

Anderson, however, will be making no allowances for what has gone before.

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“I’ll go into the game just the same as I would any other game,” he said. “Anything that’s gone on in the past is in the past.

“I’ll continue to play the game the way I play it. If that means occasionally getting in the batsmen’s faces I’ll do that.

“From a seamer’s point of view, you can’t lose any of your aggression. We’re going to use any aggression we have to try to make an impression on the Pakistani batsmen.

“Generally we try to let the ball do the talking. But occasionally the verbals do go on.”

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Pietersen acknowledges how to deal with bad memories of 2010 has been a significant subject in England’s team meetings, but rejects the suggestion that old grievances between the two teams might return to haunt them and international cricket.

“Our guys have had long chats about this, and I don’t think it is going to be a problem with us whatsoever,” he said.

“We are here to play cricket.

“We want to win the games of cricket, and I don’t think it is going to be an issue at all.”

Pietersen, in fact, portrays the subject as a ‘media issue’ rather than a real concern.

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“It is a case of doing what we do well, scoring runs, taking wickets and our catches – and enjoying each other’s success,” he said. “We sat down and had a long team meeting about it and we think it is more of a media issue and not one for us.”

There are other more important considerations for England, according to Anderson. Top of that list will be how to consolidate their newly-found ICC Test No 1 status, in alien conditions which have previously so often proved beyond them.

They have not played Test cricket in the United Arab Emirates before. But the Middle East is little different to the Asian sub-continent, where they have regularly struggled in all formats.

“We want to stay No 1 in the world,” said Anderson.

“To do that, we’re going to have to win here and in Sri Lanka and then in India at the end of the year. It’s going to be a tough ask for us. But the best teams in the world do win out here.”

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Anderson and Pietersen have key roles to play, as will off-spinner Graeme Swann on pitches expected to produce attritional cricket in which wickets are hard won throughout.

“It’s going to be a tough job for us, especially the seamers to help out our spinners,” said Anderson.

“We hope we can chip away with wickets, but our main job is to dry up runs.

“We’re pretty confident. We know how to get 20 wickets out here. We hope all it takes now is to go out on the field and show people what we can do.”

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Stuart Broad is expected to be fit for the first Test, despite badly bruising his left foot when he was hit in the nets today by a yorker from his new-ball partner Anderson.

No scan was required, and Broad is confident he will be able to bowl in practice tomorrow.