Risk of injury forces England to omit James Anderson from final Test

England has been forced to omit premier pacer James Anderson for the final Test match between India and England scheduled to take place at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. India has seemingly steamrolled over their opponents after having claimed a series win in the previous Test at the Wankhede Stadium.

In spite of not offering turn on the first one and a half days as well as winning the toss, the Brits were simply unable to overhaul the Indians as Virat Kohli’s brigade coasted to an impressive innings victory. James Anderson was also a bitter disappointment as the 33-year-old went wicketless in the Test match at the Wankhede.

Alastair Cook has confirmed @jimmy9 will miss out in Chennai due to stiffness but @StuartBroad8 is back in contention #INDvENG pic.twitter.com/sFHWihg9mw

— England Cricket (@englandcricket) December 15, 2016

What is worse is the fact that he was involved in somewhat of a spiteful tussle with Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin during the Test. He had earlier taken a dig at the Indian skipper Virat and said it was because of the wickets that he was got away despite flaws in his batting.

That did not go down well with Ashwin and he shared a thought or two with Anderson when he walked out to bat in the last innings in Mumbai. The England team was clearly unhappy that Ashwin got away with the altercation without being fined for it while Ben Stokes was fine and handed a demerit point for his exchange with Virat in the Mohali Test.

While interacting with the media ahead of the 5th Test Stokes said, “It’s theatre for people who want to see it,” he said. “It’s part of the game, so I don’t see any reason why they should try to clamp down on it so quickly. But if it’s going to be one rule, it’s got to be the same rule for everyone. You can’t just be letting certain people get away with certain things and not others. I think that side of the game can be just jumped on and people get slapped with fines and all that stuff. But if you’re going to do someone then you’ve got to do the next person no matter who they are or who they play for.”