James Anderson gives us a glimpse of socially distanced wicket celebrations!

Veteran James Anderson, celebrated a wicket with elbow touches and smiles, emphasising the need for social distancing during England’s internal practice match.

No High-fives, no hugs, no wild head rubs, only elbow contacts and smiles – Cricket got its first glimpse of new normals due to Coronavirus during England’s internal practice game between Team Stokes and Team Butler on Wednesday. Veteran James Anderson, who returned to action for the first time since suffering an injury during the away series in New Zealand celebrated with elbow touches and smiles, emphasising the need for social distancing. Further, the english pacer was also found to be using the sanitiser between overs. Clearly, this sight is going to take some time to get used to.

The elbow dabs have become quite the norm in the sporting world ever since Project Restart with the return of football in the UK. If there was any doubt about how cricketers would go about their celebrations then Wednesday’s practice game in the led up to the three-match Test series between England and West Indies, which will also mark the return of international cricket after three months, erased it all.

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In a tweet shared by England Cricket on its official Twitter handle captioned as ‘It’s different but it’s back’, Anderson is seen celebrating a wicket with elbow dabs with spinner Moeen Ali. Further pictures of the empty stadium with a large red no entry sign on the floor have also been posted to indicate the emphasis on public health and safety.

Anderson who is representing Team Stokes in the practice game, bowled 18 overs, giving away 49 runs and taking 2 scalps of the other team’s batting lineup.

Team Buttler ended the day at 287 for five with James Bracey and Dan Lawrence scoring impressive fifties.

The Ben Stokes-led England side will take on West Indies in the first of the three Tests starting from July 8 at Southampton. Ben Stokes steps in for Joe Root, who has been sidelined from the first test due to the birth of his child.

This will be first Test in which the new rules will come into play the most talked about one the ban of usage of saliva to shine the cricket ball to minimise the threat of cricketers getting infected.