I FIND it hard to believe England cricket fans are not being royally treated in watching the best bowling duo this country has ever seen.

Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad decimated the (admittedly naive and under-prepared) Sri Lankan batsmen twice in the space of around 70 overs last week, and they must surely be regarded as the best two-pronged attack England has ever produced.

Some might argue they have been helped by the tracks and they are taking down weak line-ups, and of course the Australian and West Indian teams of today are a far cry from the legendary dominant forces of years gone by. Certainly there is no Tendulkar, Ponting or Kallis, no Don, Sir Viv or Dr Grace to face. But as they say, you can only beat what is put in front of you, and my, how these two red-ball swashbucklers get their swing on.

Not all sports have the cut-and-dried figures to back up claims of greatness that cricket has and Anderson and Broad's numbers stack up beautifully.

Lancastrian Anderson is now racing away from Ian Botham's previous Test wickets record, leaving the knight in his rear-view mirror, and the leader of the pack, having vanquished his Headingley hoodoo with 10-45 in the first Test, is surely nailed on to add plenty more to his 443 once England and Sri Lanka resume in Durham today.

Of course, he will not get within 22 yards of the totals garnered by spinners Muralitharan, Warne or Kumble but when the only seamers in history ahead of you are Glenn McGrath and Courtney Walsh, you know you have done okay.

As for Broad, few will forget his 8-15 in the 2015 Trent Bridge Ashes Test, or the 6-17 against the number one-ranked South Africa in Johannesburg early this year.

Neither haul was a flash-in-the-pan either. You just do not get to the head of the ICC rankings – or take 338 scalps to eclipse Bob Willis – on the strength of one or two hay-making days in the sun. He is as capable as anyone when he gets up a head of steam and can run through line-ups at will.

He is often, unfairly, dismissed as second fiddle to Anderson, but both will readily admit they would be far less successful had the other not been around – the total being greater than the sum of two parts, and all that.

Always plotting together, the non-bowler is ready and willing to offer opinion from their usual spot at mid-on or mid-off and their in-house rivalry will surely spur both on.

England's most prolific pairing complement each other neatly, just as Trueman's whirlwind was the foil to Statham's beguiling briskness, and Gough's skidding deliveries balanced Caddick's bouncing bombs.

Just as modern-day Aussies McGrath and Warne – one metronomic, the other a complete bag of tricks – and before that Lillee's purist-pleasing action contrasting sharply with Thomson's explosive slings, England's most successful partnership has height, bounce and often unplayable movement off the seam, courtesy of Broad, and Anderson's complete mastery of the dark arts of swing, both conventional and reverse.

So all being well, come the next Ashes series we may yet experience that rarest of things – feelings of sympathy towards Aussie batsmen.

On second thoughts, not even Jimmy and Broady can manage to conjure that up.