When examining why James Anderson has been so successful for so long, it’s probably worth asking the man himself.
Sitting in the backroom of the Leicester Electricity Cricket Club, a stone’s throw away from the old Filbert Street football ground, in May 2022, Anderson addressed that very question. His answer was as simple as it was endearing.
“I love bowling,” he said. “I love winning games of cricket and enjoying other people’s success as much as having success myself.
“Having that camaraderie. That’s probably the thing I’ll miss the most – the dressing-room environment, not seeing people every day. That’s something I really enjoy.”
This explains why Anderson, who will make his final Test appearance for England against the West Indies at Lord’s next week, has decided to stay on for the rest of the summer as a bowling mentor.
At the time of this sit-down chat in Leicester, one of the many sponsors’ appearances he has done over the past 24 years of being a professional cricketer, he was looking forward to a recall after being dropped for the tour of the West Indies a few months previously.
That decision, taken by former England director of cricket Andrew Strauss and endorsed by then captain Joe Root as part of the doomed “red-ball reset”, backfired spectacularly as a team shorn of both the country’s two all-time leading wicket-takers – his long-time friend and bowling partner Stuart Broad was also dropped – crashed to a 1-0 series defeat.
In the two years since that day in Leicester, Anderson has taken 60 Test wickets at 25. It’s not been the most successful period of his career but it’s been one of the most enjoyable under the Bazball regime of coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes.
That McCullum felt the need to tap Anderson, 41, on the shoulder, flying over from New Zealand to tell him this would be his last summer, has baffled many.
Not least Anderson’s old Ashes sparring partner Nathan Lyon, who after seeing his Lancashire team-mate take seven for 35 in the County Championship against Nottinghamshire this week, said: “I’m very surprised England have said you’ve got one more Test and that’s it,” he said. “He’s world-class. He’s probably the best to ever play the game as a fast bowler and his skill set especially in England is remarkable.”
Anderson’s numbers are staggering. He has 1,114 first-class wickets at an average of 24.67. In 187 Tests he has 700 wickets, more than any other seam bowler by some distance, and needs nine next week at Lord’s to leapfrog Aussie great Shane Warne into second place on the all-time list.
Nothing, though, was ever pre-determined about Anderson becoming England’s greatest bowler. He was rejected by Lancashire at under-16 level, only to be picked up by the club soon after following a phone call from Val Brown, the wife of Burnley Cricket Club’s then captain Peter Brown, who implored John Stanworth, coach of the county’s age-group teams, to take another look at the teenage Anderson.
“We brought him for an indoor net and I was taken by his pace and late swing,” Stanworth told the BBC in 2015.” I didn’t think there and then he was going to be an England bowler but I knew there was a talent there I couldn’t believe I had not seen before.
“The other notable thing was he said absolutely zip all to me for the next two-and-a-half years, apart from ‘OK Stanny’. He was quiet, unassuming and quite shy, but his development was quite rapid.”
In 2000, aged 17, Anderson made his professional debut in a NatWest Trophy match for a Lancashire Board XI against Suffolk at Mildenhall Cricket Club, with Russell Catley his first wicket.
“I vaguely remember not having a clue which way he was swinging it,” Catley told The Cricketer in 2020.
Two years later, in the winter of 2002-03, he made his ODI debut for England in Australia under the captaincy of Nasser Hussain. He burst to prominence soon after at the World Cup when he took four for 29 in a group match against Pakistan in Cape Town.
His Test debut, against Zimbabwe at Lord’s, came three months later, Mark Vermeulen his first wicket as he took five for 73.
Yet the early promise of a raw bowler known as the “Burnley Express” hit a road block when former England bowling coach Troy Cooley tinkered with his action. In 20 Tests between his debut and March 2008, when his career was relaunched on the tour of New Zealand, he took 62 wickets at 39.20.
Designed to prevent injury, Cooley’s remodelling of Anderson’s action actually led to a stress fracture of the back that ultimately saved his career.
Kevin Shine, Cooley’s successor, overhauled Anderson’s action during his rehabilitation from that injury. “His bowling didn’t look right,” Shine recalled in 2015. “He couldn’t get into a position to get the ball out nicely and his body language was poor.
“Lancashire coach Mike Watkinson had some footage of Jimmy as a 15-year-old and it looked incredibly natural.
“We agreed Jimmy could go back to his old action so long as he got his front elbow high into his hip and went through a good strength and conditioning programme. When we chatted about it with Jimmy, you could see the relief in his face.
“I don’t think the remodel was a mistake – it was based on the research that was around at that particular time. If Jimmy hadn’t got injured, he wouldn’t be half the bowler he is today.”
Anderson’s second coming came in Wellington in March 2008, when after Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard were dropped he came into the attack alongside Broad.
It was a partnership that would become England’s greatest and since then Anderson has taken 638 Test wickets at 25.29.
The highlights are too numerous to mention but two I was lucky enough to witness in person were the Trent Bridge Test against Pakistan in 2010, when Anderson took a second-innings six for 17 in a performance of swing bowling that must go down as one of the greatest of all-time.
The other was the 2010-11 Ashes tour, when Anderson made a mockery of criticism he is only a bowler for English conditions with 24 wickets at 26 to help Strauss’ team win a series in Australia for the first and only time since 1986-87.
But it is his longevity that is truly remarkable. Anderson has often said much of that is down to “luck”.
Yet it is painstaking hard work off the field that has allowed him to carry on for so long. Graeme Swann once said of his former team-mate: “He’s got the worst diet of any professional athlete I know. The only things he eats are pizzas and burgers.”
That all changed in his mid-30s when he overhauled his diet, cutting out crisps, chocolate and other fatty snacks and only eating carbohydrates on training days. Once fond of a drink, as all cricketers were when he started out, he has also largely cut out alcohol.
Anderson even considered following in the footsteps of NFL legend Tom Brady, who also carried on playing well into his forties, by going vegan. “I actually have chatted it through with my wife actually – she’s not keen,” he admitted back in 2019.
Cod liver oil for his joints and protein shakes on training days have also become part of the regimen that has allowed Anderson to defy time.
Exercise, too, has been key. Streamlined running, engaging his core and keeping upright, mimicking the style of US track legend Carl Lewis, has helped him avoid injury. Interval training has also been a regular part of his fitness work, along with thrice-weekly weight sessions to work on his legs, core and shoulders.
This is the grunt work that has allowed Anderson to appear as though playing into his forties has been effortless. It has been anything but.
Yet when he strides out at Lord’s next week for the final time, many, probably including himself, will be wondering just why England are calling time on their greatest-ever bowler.