England bury memories of match-fixing in bid to cement top Test status

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’ England will be unfettered by others’ 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.

When they take the field for the first of three Tests at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium tomorrow, 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 be absent, serving jail sentences in England and long International Cricket Council bans, too. But many innocent parties on both sides, all caught up in the aftermath to different degrees, remain.Anderson, however, insisted: “I’ll go into the game just the same as I would any other. 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 have to try to make an impression on the Pakistani batsmen.”

Pietersen acknowledges that dealing 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.

“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 and I don’t think it is going to be an issue at all.

“We think it is more of a media issue and not one for us.”

There are other more important considerations, according to Anderson – and top of that list will be how to consolidate their newly-found ICC Test number one 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 number one 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.”