Anderson is a genuine swing bowler

The praise for James Anderson just keeps on coming. In the Guardian, Mike Selvey compares him to a young Ian Botham, before going on to explain how Anderson gets such movement with the ball.

Botham was – and Anderson is – a swing bowler through and through and at this point we should be clear about the distinction between that and someone who can swing the ball. It is not just nit-picking semantics. Matthew Hoggard, say, could swing the ball, but he did so on his action, with a lowish arm, and one way only. A genuine swing bowler is a manipulator of the ball. He can work it this way and that at will with a tilt of the wrist and little more. He uses swing as a spinner does variations. Botham could do this and so too could Richard Ellison and the Worcestershire bowler Phil Newport, who had a brief flirtation with the England side.