James Anderson says England must not get carried away despite excellent first day in Melbourne

By Sportsmail Reporter
Updated: 04:52 EST, 26 December 2010

James Anderson insisted England could not look too far ahead despite finishing a magnificent first day of the Boxing Day Test 59 runs ahead in Melbourne.

Anderson and Chris Tremlett shared eight wickets as they bowled Australia out for 98 in two sessions before Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss put on 157 without loss.

Should England win in Melbourne and go 2-1 up in the series they would retain the Ashes but Anderson refused to contemplate victory.

'It is too soon, we have got a lot of hard work to do with the bat in the next day and hopefully more than a day,' he said.

'By the way of how flat the pitch has got this afternoon we are going to have to do quite well to bowl them out.

'It's going to be four days of really hard work.'

However, he admitted England could scarcely have enjoyed a better day, adding: "It couldn't have gone much better for us.

'It was a great decision to bowl first, I thought we bowled fantastic all day.'

On whether the conditions changed during the game, Anderson said: 'I think they did.

'There was some grass there early on, a bit of seam movement and a bit of cloud cover as well so we did make best use of that.

'I thought it was probably our best performance of the trip as a bowling unit.'