County Championship: James Anderson takes 1,000th first-class wicket to help Lancashire get on top

England fast bowler James Anderson took his 1,000th first-class wicket to help Lancashire skittle Kent for 74 inside a session at Emirates Old Trafford.

Bowling, appropriately enough, from the James Anderson End, the 38-year-old’s figures were his best at Old Trafford.

But Kent fought back well to reduce Lancashire to 103-5 by the close.

As well as beating his previous Manchester best of 6-49 against Worcestershire in 2004, Anderson also became the first Lancashire player to pass 1,000 first-class wickets since Jack Simmons in 1988. But he remains a long way behind the Old Trafford greats, led by record holder Brian Statham (1,816).

After taking the first five wickets to fall, Danny Lamb wrecked Anderson’s chances of taking all 10, by getting the wicket of England batsman Joe Denly.

Lamb took two more to end up with 3-16 but, even by Anderson’s own high standards, this was really his day.

After the loss of day one, play did not get under way until after lunch, at 14:00 BST.

But Anderson, making only his second County Championship appearance of the summer, soon made up for lost time, with a combination of good line, good length, seam movement and a little swing.

England’s all-time top Test wicket-taker was finally taken off after bowling unchanged to take figures of 10-5-19-7 – all seven victims falling to edges, either caught behind or in the slips.

Anderson’s 1,000th victim was South African Heino Kuhn, caught behind by wicketkeeper and captain Vilas, who ended with five victims.

Lamb also weighed in with two more wickets, the first that of 45-year-old Darren Stevens, caught at long-on, as Kent slumped to 51-9.

Stevens ended as top scorer with four boundaries in his 19 off 24 balls, before the best partnership of the innings, 23 between spinner James Logan, on his Kent debut, and New Zealander Matt Quinn.

Kent’s total of 74 was the second time they have been bowled out so cheaply, having also made just 74 in their second innings against Glamorgan in Cardiff in April.

Following a delayed tea interval, Lancashire then made a good start to their own first innings. They got within 10 runs of the Kent total before losing their first wicket, Alex Davies for a typically quickfire 47 off 43 balls, but then quickly slumped from 64-0 to 67-3 in the space of 18 balls.

Vilas became a victim for Logan before Stevens got in on the act by removing Josh Bohannon but Steven Croft (8 not out) and Rob Jones (7 not out) dug in to avoid any damage on a day of 15 wickets in just two extended sessions.

‘I could potentially be the last to take 1,000 wickets’

“It still sounds ridiculous to think I’ve taken 1,000 wickets. I’m away a lot with England and don’t get to play much for Lancashire so it makes it that much more special to do it here and with a performance that helps the team.

“It was a lifelong dream to play for Lancashire. It feels special to get the mIlestone here where I took my first wicket. Getting Ian Ward out here is something I’ll never forget.

“To get 1,000 first-class wickets is becoming harder with the amount of cricket that is played across the world. It is getting less and less likely that it will happen again. I could potentially be the last person to do it, which just adds to the feeling of it being very, very special.

“I have been doing loads of work in the nets and all I was thinking about was grooving my action and working on some stuff – I wanted to make sure I bowled well and got into that rhythm.

“I felt really good from ball one. Sometimes you can just feel that way from the moment the ball comes and you know it’s going to be a good day. The first ball went exactly where I wanted it to go and it swung. The conditions were favourable.”