By Rob Barnett
James Anderson expects to resume bowling when he goes to South Africa with the England Performance Programme fast bowlers.
On Tuesday Anderson was ruled out of England’s tour to Sri Lanka to continue his rehabilitation on a left-knee injury.
Anderson will be joined on the EPP trip by Stuart Broad, his long-standing England new-ball partner, who is recovering well from surgery on his right knee in September.
They will work alongside seven other seamers, including Test team-mate Liam Plunkett, at the camp in Potchefstroom, which runs from November 21 to December 10.
Anderson and Broad are building towards England’s commitments in the new year, a tri-series with India and hosts Australia followed by the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
Speaking exclusively to ecb.co.uk about the South Africa trip, Anderson said: “I think that will coincide with me coming back to bowling, going to Potchefstroom to work with the performance squad out there.
“Stuart Broad’s going there as well, so it will be nice to not only continue working on my fitness but get some bowling in warm weather.”
For the time being Anderson is working on his fitness in England, including at the National Cricket Performance Centre in Loughborough where he spoke to ecb.co.uk.
“With me not going to Sri Lanka, the next series to look at is the tri-series in the new year,” he added.
“So that gives us a couple of months to plan a programme, whether it’s fitness in the gym or getting back to bowling, to plan out in quite detail how I’m going to do that and how I’m going to progress up to making the plane journey hopefully in the new year.”
Been down to London for an hour, back up north now. Surgeon happy with the knee, training is going well looking forward to bowling soon!
— Stuart Broad (@StuartBroad8) November 6, 2014
Anderson explained that his knee injury has been showing significant improvement, but not enough for him to go on the Sri Lanka tour he was initially selected on.
“I’m disappointed that I can’t make the trip to Sri Lanka but I’ve had an issue with my knee that’s been ongoing through the summer,” he said.
“I’ve tried to managed it through the summer, I’ve managed to get through that and it’s improved a reasonable amount over the last few weeks but not quite enough to be 100 per cent for this Sri Lanka tour.
“So we’ve decided that the best option is to try and keep working on the knee, get it strong, keep working on my fitness as well.
“Hopefully that will put me into a really good position fitness-wise, going into a very busy year next year.”