Jimmy Anderson has said turning out for Lancashire will take precedence over any coaching opportunities with England this summer after agreeing a new one-year contract to play in the County Championship and the T20 Blast.
The 42-year-old Anderson has been working as a consultant coach for England since his enforced retirement from Test cricket last summer and he will be part of Brendon McCullum’s backroom staff for the Champions Trophy in Pakistan next month.
Anderson, however, has also stated his intention to continue playing and, after missing out on a deal in the Indian Premier League, has now agreed a season-long contract at his boyhood club that will include the club’s bid to climb out of Division Two after their relegation last year.
“I’ll play as much as I can really,” Anderson told the BBC Tailenders podcast. “As much as I have enjoyed coaching, I’ll see how that fits this summer. But while I’m still able to play – fit enough, and young enough – I want to do that. I can’t do that in three years. [Playing for Lancashire] will take precedence over anything else in the summer.”
Mark Chilton, the director of cricket at Lancashire, said: “As it stands, he is fully committed to the county season across both the County Championship and the Blast, and while we all recognise he will have other opportunities, he has made it clear playing is his first priority.
“To be able to share a dressing room with England’s all-time leading wicket-taker, and one of cricket’s greatest players, is incredible for our squad.”
Anderson, who has been coaching with England on a freelance basis, is currently in Abu Dhabi working with the seamers Jofra Archer, Mark Wood, Gus Atkinson and Brydon Carse ahead of the white-ball tour of India that gets under way next week and serves as a warm-up for the eight‑team Champions Trophy.
Warwickshire have signed the Australian player Beau Webster for the first three months of the summer following the all-rounder’s recent Test debut against India in Sydney.
ECB urges ICC to back Afghanistan women’s team
The ECB has again urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to show greater support for Afghanistan’s woman cricketers during a meeting of the organisation’s Chief Executives’ Committee in Dubai. Richard Gould, the ECB chief executive who had written to the ICC on the issue last week, and his deputy, Clare Connor, both sit on the committee.
The meeting ended without any decisions being taken, with fewer than six weeks to go before Afghanistan’s men’s team plays their first fixture of the Champions Trophy in Karachi. Last week a group of more than 160 parliamentarians called on the ECB to boycott England’s match against Afghanistan, which is due to be played in Lahore on 26 February, over the Taliban regime’s assault on women’s rights.
“We must stand against sex apartheid and we implore the ECB to deliver a firm message of solidarity and hope to Afghan women and girls that their suffering has not been overlooked,” the letter read. The ECB has made clear its preference not to take action in isolation. “While there has not been a consensus on further international action within the ICC, the ECB will continue to actively advocate for such measures,” Gould wrote. “A coordinated, ICC-wide approach would be significantly more impactful than unilateral actions by individual members.”
Gould made good on his promise to “continue to actively advocate for action” in Monday’s meeting, though decisive action was never possible: under their terms of reference the Chief Executives’ Committee – which has 20 members of whom Connor, the former England captain, is the only woman – exists largely to advise the ICC Board, and no decisions were taken or resolutions drafted on the issue.
Among other proposals the ECB has called on the ICC to support the Afghan women’s players who are currently exiled, most of them based in Melbourne, by reallocating a portion of the funding they would ordinarily send to the Afghanistan Cricket Board. The reallocation of this funding is due to be discussed by the Women’s Cricket Committee when they next meet in March. Simon Burnton
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