James Anderson the master sends his theatre into raptures once again

The James Anderson End – an elegy in four words. Or six balls. Except it isn’t. There is nothing elegiac about James Anderson, despite entering his fifth decade, despite his 100th home Test, despite a touch of grizzlement about the beard. He has got 664 Test wickets under the belt and is taking a smart right turn straight towards the next milestone.

This could be his last Test at Old Trafford. Except it won’t be. The fourth Ashes Test next July has his name all over it, as he stands slim as a broom handle at the end of his mark, white wristbands dipped in Dettol, shirt smoothed into trousers.

At his theatre, the props do what they’re told – most of the time. Fifteen minutes into the day, and from his own end, Anderson hitched up the wagon, flayed the horses and wheeled out a banger that caught the guts of the old ground.

The semi-weary early approach to the crease, a paperboy with one last round before term begins, switches into professional excellence in sight of the stumps, an around-the-wicket beauty that kept low, squeezed away and spun Dean Elgar’s rainbow-clad off stump out of the ground.

Elgar, squared up, inelegant, glimpsed behind and trudged away, giving the offending stump a woebegone tap with his bat as he went, for 11. South Africa’s captain back in the pavilion with 33 on the scoreboard and captured by Anderson for the sixth time in Tests.

Anderson, delighted, ran a semi-circular jig, arms outstretched, his teammates billowing in his wake, celebrations topped off with a high five from his buddy on the long road trip, Stuart Broad.

Old Trafford, belly bursting with spectators, rolling around the party stand as the smell of grilled lamb kebab wafted over the forecourt, milling with people dressed as traffic