London, July 25: James Anderson made it to the honours rolls at Lord’s with an impressive five-for to seal victory for England in the first Test match against India.

Speaking to the media in a post-match interaction, he reflected upon the thrilling match.

Excerpts:

On the match

A great game for us. We batted fantastically in the first innings - KP [Kevin Pietersen] got a double hundred, [we] bowled them out relatively cheaply in the first innings and then again batted well. Matt Prior got a hundred and today it was just a matter of patience, hanging in there on a quite flat pitch, trying to take some wickets.

On whether they were confident of getting India out or simply trying to set them a safe target

We had the confidence that we could bowl them out in a day. We knew that we would have to get the rub of the green; you never know who is going to play well. They have got some fantastic batters, world-class batters; they could have easily got through the day. We knew that we had to bowl well and that’s where the patience came in. Trying to starve them of runs and make it frustrating for them and we did that.

On bowling with Chris Tremlett and Stuart Broad

We discuss [things] all the time, it is a very important part of our job - where to bowl to which batsman. I thought we did fantastically well in this game. Those two probably spoke to each other more than they did to me. They are different bowlers to me, I’m still a lot taller so their lengths are going to be a lot different. It was fantastic and I thought Graeme Swann did a fantastic job blocking them while we could [attack] from the other end.

On whether it felt like they were taking on the best team in the world

Yeah, if you look at that team sheet, it is really a daunting eleven players we were playing against. They have had the misfortune of Zaheer Khan pulling up in the first innings so it probably goes as an advantage for us that he didn’t bowl in the second innings. There’s fortune that you need to pounce on especially against a team like India. They are very strong and hopefully we can continue our good form into the next three games.