
It was not long before James Anderson finished his demolition of Nottinghamshire last week that a kind of narrative formed.
Jimmy retiring in the Lord’s Test, a month from his forty-second birthday? Why so soon? You may be ready, Jimmy, but we are not, quite. ‘I am very surprised that England have tapped him on the shoulder and said one more Test and that’s it,’ said his new Lancashire confrere Nathan Lyon. ‘He’s world class, probably the best to ever play the game as a fast bowler and his skillset, especially in England, is remarkable.’
Lyon, who will be in his fortieth year by the time Australia makes the Ashes trip he’s aiming for, might be said to have a vested interest in career elongation. The rest of us? On one hand, for all his craft, Anderson’s edge has been perceptibly blunting these last couple of years. On the other, the passing of a cricketer so venerable, so much part of our daily lives, catches us out, leaves a gap - the first shade of Jimmy’s hair we remember dates us exactly as cricket fans.
This sense is the more pronounced because he is evidently an unwilling pensioner, England having to face that an attack of, say, Anderson, Woakes, Stokes, Wood, and Robinson would have an average mileage of almost 35 years, with a propensity for injury to match. The case for continuing with Anderson would be a good deal stronger if he was flanked by a couple of strapping mid-twenties, high-eighties quicks.
The truth is that, were it left to him, Anderson would trundle on into perpetuity. He is one of those cricketers so grooved, so self-contained as to show up the changes of landscape round him. He never quite dominated fifty-over cricket; he arrived too soon to develop a T20 skill base. His Test career was surely prolonged by the lulls that the playing of these formats introduced to his schedule. Don’t forget that Anderson almost retired after the Oval Test of 2016, and had to be dissuaded by his old mucker Stuart Broad. He became increasingly like your best cutlery, only brought out on special occasions, and was well paid for it too.
Ah, but when he did, eh? Anderson had the perfectly complementary method and manner, tidiness personified, the minimal magnified - the shortest possible run, the solidest possible basics, just enough movement, just enough pace, one way, then the other. Vic Marks put it nicely in The Observer:
When the ball was swinging for Anderson it was akin to watching a great wrist-spinner. It seemed impossible to discern in which direction the ball was going to deviate at the end of its flightpath. Gobsmacked batters might shoulder arms to the surprise in-swinger as if it was an undetected googly before plodding back to the pavilion.
I made my own efforts to describe his action here and here, in terms of its hydraulic smoothless, and his last book, Bowl Sleep Repeat, testified to the simplicity and reproducibility of his objectives.
So exquisite was his stock ball that Anderson remained stubbornly at odds with cricket’s deepening accent on variety; so absorbed was he in his task, he left no surplus energy for gesture or gesticulation. His only memorable mannerism was a custom, after each delivery, of replacing and smoothing the forelock he had dislodged by the effort of his delivery stride - it was like Shane Warne’s reflex hand rub in the dirt of the popping crease, a means of starting everything over. Otherwise, he budgeted his cricket thriftily. He could look careworn but seldom tired.
As a man, Anderson remained rather off limits to the public and the media. His opinions were private. His humour was dry. His manner tended to the grumpy and taciturn - like Steve Waugh, he found relaxation elusive. He remained suspicious of outsiders, not out of a desire to hide, but with an impatience for pretence, for he was like a stick of Blackpool Rock, the same all the way through.
There is integrity in that. He did not blow hot and cold. He was happiest in the middle, if happy is the right description - maybe most fulfilled would fit better. He will miss that recourse. Curtly Ambrose, curt and stand-offish as a fast bowler, became a bit of a jester when his bowling day was done. I cannot see Anderson going down the same route. His two great contemporaries, Alastair Cook and Stuart Broad, sheered into the media. That is not in Anderson’s nature either. As mooted bowling mentor for England, I can see him being a vigilant watcher, and maybe even a slightly frustrated one. Part of him will always be out there.
It’s a nice thing when an Australian cricket writer can give an English cricketer such a warm, fair and balanced appraisal at career’s end. For all his achievements, I doubt that Jimmy would be warmly remembered by many Australians. Too grumpy, only bowled well in England, a bit of a mouth, can’t bat would be how many would sum him up, which would be sad (and wrong), because it is no way to appreciate a man, even a pom, with 700 Test wickets under his belt. Anderson is the greatest swing bowler in history, and that is how he should be remembered. I’d like to think a few English writers, certainly Michael Atherton, would have given Shane Warne a glowing endorsement when the great leggie retired so, thank you Gideon for giving us such a fair-minded summary (you might have to do another one if he takes 9 wickets in his last test).
Great article on a great fast bowler. On a tour of Lords in 2024 we were told that Anderson always sat next to the Captain (moves with the Captain) in the English dressing room. Interesting.