Anderson worry for England

James Anderson

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See Paul Collingwood at the post-play press conference and the full day three report on ECBtv

England were given an injury scare after James Anderson left the ground on crutches following the third day of the second Test against New Zealand in Wellington.

Anderson, who took 5-73 to put England in control, hurt his left ankle while playing football with the rest of the squad after the close at the Basin Reserve.

The 25-year-old Lancashire seamer will have ice treatment later before his condition is re-assessed on Sunday morning. Medical staff are hopeful the injury is not too serious as Anderson was at least able to put weight on the injured joint.

Anderson only returned to the side for this match following the ruthless decision to drop Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard after the first Test defeat in Hamilton.

He took his chance well as England secured a 144-run first-innings lead - an advantage they extended to 421 by reaching 277 for nine.

The freak injury took the shine off England’s day and the team will be hoping Anderson can recover. Not only he is the next man to bat but, more importantly, he had been expected to take the new ball.

England nevertheless are in a strong position in the match after half-centuries from Alastair Cook and Paul Collingwood.

They are now ideally poised to cancel out the 189-run loss in Hamilton but all-rounder Collingwood warned England cannot afford to ease up.

He said: “We’re very satisfied with where we’re at with a lead over 400 but there are two days left in the game – which is plenty of time to bowl them out, but it’s also plenty of time to get the runs.

“Over these three days we’ve played some really good, skilful cricket at times. There have been some difficult situations and conditions so everybody has responded well.

“We’ve proved we’ve still got confidence in the camp and we can go out there and win, but we need another big day tomorrow.

“Usually the fourth day in a Test match is the one you need to win and it certainly is for us if we want to stay in the series.”

England’s innings also included a notable first – Cook’s first six after 5,471 balls of international cricket, a mistimed pull off seamer Chris Martin which flew over the slips.

Paul Collingwood helps put England in control

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That record had been a source of mirth in the dressing room and Collingwood added: “It’s a shame we didn’t have a balcony here because you should have heard the roar in the dressing room.

“You couldn’t see it on television so we’re still not sure whether it was a six or a four! It was hidden behind the sightscreen so I don’t know how they gave a six – in our view it was a four!”

Despite facing a record total to win in the fourth innings, New Zealand are still confident they can chase down whatever the target will be on a wicket which showed signs of flattening out.

“It’s been a great batting deck on the third day here so if we can get similar conditions tomorrow we feel the runs are definitely gettable because there’s so much time left in the match,” said seamer Kyle Mills.

“There are two full days and if we can get a couple of our batsmen in to post a big score, it’s definitely game on because we bat so far down.

“We turned up this morning hoping for a bit of cloud cover to help the ball swing around but seeing the blue skies we knew it was going to be a tough day and it definitely flattened out after the first half hour.

“We were hoping to rock ‘n’ roll them for 150 but once we saw the blue sky we knew it was going to be hard work and to get them nine down by the end of the day we have to be pretty pleased with that as a bowling unit.”