Exactly. Always been a fan of Anderson since he first broke into the side as a youngster in Australia. In the middle of the usual disaster of an Ashes tour he impressed in the ODIs (which for some reason started in the middle of the test series) and he was a real chance to play the next test but I think had to return home due to a family death or illness. Then I think he had about 3 years of touring and being 12th man, occasionally coming in for the final test in a series and not doing that well. And always touring like that meant he barely got to play a first class game either. The turning point for him was on that tour here when they finally dumped Harmison and Hoggard, probably a year or two too late, after the first test and brought him and Broad in then he took 5 wickets on the first day of the 2nd test. They have both led the bowling attack ever since.
Wonder if Bairstow could follow a similar path for us to Steve Smith. There was an article on Cricinfo last week talking about Smith and whether England believed in someone's talent and could stick with them until they came good and I immediately thought of Bairstow. They have had similar kind of starts - batting in various different positions with different roles in the team (in Smith's case seeing if he could be the side's spinner, for Bairstow seeing if he can keep wicket), obvious talent but not really getting big scores to begin with etc. Think it took Smith 4 or 5 years (though not always in the side) to make his first hundred and look at him now. There probably are 1 or 2 batting places up for grabs in the test team so Bairstow will have got his name back into discussions. I imagine Eoin Morgan will be eyeing up a test recall too, certainly hasn't done himself much harm.