Is Jimmy Anderson the most infuriating athlete in England? Blowing hot, blowing cold: the one consistent streak in his CV is his inconsistency. Every now and then, you think he has cracked it and then along comes another match - and you know he hasn't.

Sometimes he has a good spell and you think that inconsistency was just a matter of his youth, and that he'll grow out of it. Then he has a poor match and you think, “Hell, he's 25, perhaps it's just a question of temperament”. Perhaps inconsistency is the essential nature of the man.

But then he has another good day and we have to reconsider. It drives us all mad, but there is no doubt that it drives Jimmy maddest of all. Imagine waking up every Test match morning not knowing if you are going to be Jimmy the Demon or Jimmy the Buffet. He's like the man with one foot in a bucket of boiling water and the other in a bucket of ice: on the average, he's comfortable.

Just look at his recent history. It makes no sense whatsoever. He was treated with casual savagery by the Sri Lanka batsmen this winter and dropped. But then England were beaten in New Zealand and a couple of bowlers took the blame.

Suddenly, Anderson was back in favour; and equally suddenly, he was on the top of his form again, running through the New Zealand top order and opening the door for a series win.

All the same, he still wouldn't have been at Lord's yesterday and bowling against New Zealand if Andrew Flintoff had been fit. But there he was, taking advantage of a bowler-friendly day after the opposition had been inserted and whisking out three of the New Zealand top order with swing, pace and bounce. He looked strong, confident, utterly in control of his own destiny. Inconsistent? Moi? I'm an England strike bowler and batsmen tremble before me.

Let's not get too gung-ho about it, all the same. This is New Zealand - and New Zealand at a low ebb at that. But at least Anderson, a man defined by diffidence, was prepared to get nasty, was willing to cause dismay. It is harder than you might think to exploit genuinely helpful conditions. Many find it easier to cope with adversity. A time when you are seriously expected to do well can set up all kinds of unhelpful tensions. Phil Tufnell hated it when people told him the wicket would take spin. But Anderson looked, if not like a world-beater, then at least like a bowler utterly at home in Test-match cricket and perfectly accustomed to success.

He was a gilded youth, playing for England before he got his Lancashire county cap, apparently fast-tracked straight from the Burnley second XI. He demolished Pakistan in the World Cup of 2003, but was chastened in a match against Australia that England should have won. He had a five-fer on his Test debut, admittedly against Zimbabwe - he was then humbled by Graeme Smith and South Africa. That's the way it has always been. At one stage, he had purple hair: John Woodcock, former cricket correspondent of this parish, wrote memorably: “The more he looks like a peacock, the more he will bowl like one.”

So he lost his place at the crucial time, when England started to gain the momentum that took them towards the victorious Ashes summer of 2005. He got back in again, but too late for a share of the glory. But he bowled awfully well as England came back from a match down to draw a series in India. And so it has continued, and so it has ever been: in again, out again, in again and so on and so forth. He has been the great hokey-cokey cricketer of England. Odd that he got his last chance but one because of the inconsistencies of Stephen Harmison. He and Harmison are united in that neither has any idea how he will bowl from one day to the next.

It is an error of psychology to suppose that enigmas are there to be solved, or even understood. With those of enigmatic and erratic talents, the only thing to do is to revel in the good days. The bad days are as bewildering and as painful to the enigma as they are to everyone else. This was a good day - and it's always nice to bump into Jimmy the Demon when he happens to be around.

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