James Anderson at 40: Red hair, reverse-sweeps and lots of wickets

1. Assuming he plays against South Africa in August, Anderson would become the 53rd man to have started a Test for England in the longest format in his forties, the first since Alec Stewart in 2003. England would have provided half of the Test cricketers above 40 from all countries; since Stewart, Sachin Tendulkar, Misbah-ul-Haq, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Rangana Herath have still been going in their forties.

2. Anderson made his Test debut on May 22, 2003 against Zimbabwe at Lord’s. His fellow debutant that day was Anthony McGrath, who is now the head coach of Essex. Many players have made their debuts after him, retired and gone on to hold prominent positions within the game: Ed Smith won his first cap later that summer and has since been and gone as England’s national selector; Paul Collingwood has been interim head coach, and New Zealand’s Brendon McCullum is England’s Test coach; Sir Andrew Strauss and Sir Alastair Cook have been knighted, the former acting for a time as the ECB’s director of cricket, the latter still playing in the County Championship.

3. As it stands, Anderson’s Test career has lasted 19 years and 44 days (from the start of his first match until the end of his most recent one). Twenty-six men have had longer runs in the format: Wilfred Rhodes lasted more than 30 years for 58 Tests, while Brian Close almost reached 27 years despite playing only 22 times. Anderson, however, has played …

4 … in 172 Tests, which is second to Tendulkar (200) in the all-time standings.

5. In that time, Anderson has taken 657 Test wickets, a haul beaten only by Muttiah Muralitharan (800) and Shane Warne (708).

6. Anderson has bowled 37,077 balls in Tests. Stuart Broad (31,571) is the next-highest seam bowler. Muralitharan, Warne and Anil Kumble — all spinners — are the only men above him, all with more than 40,000 to their names.

7. Anderson has taken 177 Test wickets since turning 35, which by itself would make him tied for 20th in England’s all-time standings, level with Angus Fraser.

8. Anderson reached No 1 in the ICC Test bowling rankings for the first time in May 2016, and was in top spot most recently in November 2018.

9. Did you know that Anderson is renowned for being grumpy? If only people mentioned it more often. “The kid who sits at the back and doesn’t say very much but he takes it all in,” Peter Martin told The Times about a young Anderson. “He seemed to be very much like that, looking back.”

10. In August and September 1999, after his famous growth spurt, a 17-year-old Anderson took three five-fors over the course of five weekends for Burnley, bowling more than 15 overs in the match on each occasion. He dismissed Martin van Jaarsveld, who would go on to play nine Tests for South Africa, on consecutive weekends.

11. Anderson’s first first-class wicket came on May 31, 2002. On the day that Senegal beat France in the opening match of the FIFA World Cup, he whistled his first ball past Mark Ramprakash’s chin and had Ian Ward dismissed by a similar delivery, banged in at throat level and caught behind by Warren Hegg.

12. The ECB was looking for its own David Beckham at the start of the 21st century and Anderson — young with blond-tipped hair — fit the bill. Then he dyed it red. After a period of fully shaved, Anderson has long opted for a natural, fashionable do, now beginning to grey a bit. (He also bowls well in a beanie).

13. Anderson made his England debut in an ODI against Australia at the MCG on December 15, 2002. Among his teammates were Nick Knight, Ronnie Irani, Ian Blackwell and James Kirtley.

14. The next month, in his seventh ODI, Anderson took the remarkable figures of 10-6-12-1 against Australia at Adelaide. This happened despite him being regarded as an expensive, tearaway fast bowler. Since then, no one has bowled more than three overs for England in a men’s ODI innings and had more economical figures.

15 Anderson’s first summer as an England bowler was also the first season of T20. According to promotional literature, his ideal dinner-party guests would be Martin Luther King, Jim Carrey and Kylie Minogue.

16. On May 14, 2003, Anderson was playing for Lancashire against Essex, who had Nasser Hussain, the England captain, in their XI. The first Test of the summer was eight days away. Anderson had Darren Robinson caught at slip from a short ball, removed Hussain for a golden duck, and from the first ball of the next over he bounced out Will Jefferson, all 6ft 10in of him. “You could see the look on [Hussain’s] face when he got him out,” Martin told The Times. “I’m assuming he was instrumental in getting him in the Test team quite quickly.”

17. That is the only hat-trick of Anderson’s first-class career to date. One month later, at the Oval, Anderson took England’s first hat-trick in men’s ODIs, dismissing Abdul Razzaq, Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Sami of Pakistan.

18. Hussain picked Anderson to face Zimbabwe in the opening Test of the 2003 summer. His first delivery was a no-ball and his first over went for 17 runs.

19. Anderson recovered to dismiss Mark Vermeulen for one and finish the innings with five for 73 from 16 overs.

20. Anderson was described by Rob Smyth for Cricinfo as the let-down of the 2003 summer against South Africa. “Jimmy Anderson, who came into the series with a big reputation and a nice red streak, but whose graffiti bowling — a half-volley here, a half-tracker there — was panned pretty much from start to finish,” Smyth wrote. “The future’s still his but, sporadic jaffas aside, he bowled like that other Beckham wannabe, Dominic Cork, on a bad day — only without the bluster and the Alice band. Sexy cricket it was not.”

21. Anderson played only one Test between August 2004 and March 2006, meaning that he was absent for the 2005 Ashes. He was in contention to play in the final match but Collingwood was chosen to take Simon Jones’s place. While England were finishing the series at the Oval, Anderson was playing for Lancashire against Essex at Chelmsford, dismissing Cook for 19 in the second innings.

22. Anderson batted 54 times in his Test career before being out for a duck. The first zero came against Australia at the Oval in August 2009.

23. Having waited so long for a Test duck, Anderson now has 30 — second only to Broad (39) for England. Courtney Walsh of West Indies leads the way with 43.

24. Six of those ducks have come in the same Test as another. In November 2016 against India Anderson became the third England batsman — the first since Ernie Hayes in 1906 — to register a king pair in Tests. Sam Curran has since become the fourth.

25. Anderson could still be relied upon to hold up an end on occasion. He and Monty Panesar survived 69 balls as the last-wicket pairing to secure a draw in the first Ashes Test of 2009.

26. Against Sri Lanka in 2014, he did even better. Anderson and Moeen Ali, who had scored a century in his second appearance, were together for 121 balls as the last-wicket pairing in an attempt to save the second Test. Unfortunately, they needed to survive 122; Anderson was caught by Herath off Shaminda Eranga for a 55-ball duck. It is the second-longest nought in men’s Test history, in terms of minutes (81) and balls, behind Geoff Allott’s 101-minute, 77-ball extravaganza for New Zealand against South Africa at Auckland in 1999.

27. Anderson has hit three sixes in Tests: slog-sweeps on one knee against Paul Harris and Saeed Ajmal, and an advancing pull over mid-wicket against Kagiso Rabada.

28. Despite being a long-time member of England’s tail, Anderson once opened the batting for Burnley. On April 29, 2001, he carried his bat for 49 not out in 41 overs against Todmorden. Dale Benkenstein came in at No 3. “His best mate robbed him of his chance of a maiden league fifty,” Ben Law, Anderson’s opening partner, told The Times. “There were two balls left. James was facing the penultimate ball and needed two for his fifty, his mate Gareth [Halley] came in and Gareth turned down an easy two to get James back on strike for the last ball. James was stranded on 49 not out and Gareth hogged the strike.”

29. The wait for a fifty ended on July 12, 2014. Against India at Trent Bridge, Anderson scored 81 off 130 balls in 230 minutes — the longest innings by a No 11 in Tests in terms of time, bettered only by Ashton Agar (98) and Tino Best (95) for runs. The following day, the front page of the Sunday Times sports section carried a picture of Anderson unfurling a reverse-sweep.

30. Anderson’s first reverse-sweep of note probably happened at Blackburn Road in May 1999. Burnley were 82 for nine, chasing 213 against Rishton, when a 16-year-old Anderson went into bat. “They had a professional called Paul Wiseman [the New Zealand off spinner] and James announced to the team before he went out to bat, ‘I’m going to reverse-sweep this bloke,’ ” Law said. “The first ball against Wiseman, he got down on his knee and absolutely nailed this ball, perfect reverse-sweep for four. The rest of us went absolutely ballistic.”

31. Ben Jones of CricViz revealed during the second Test against New Zealand last month that Anderson had played 61 reverse-sweeps against spinners in Tests, a figure bettered for England only by Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes and Joe Root in their database, which starts in 2006.

32. Anderson features highly in the all-time list of Test runscorers from No 11. He and Trent Boult traded top spot during the New Zealand Test series, and for now Boult (644) is 20 runs ahead of Anderson.

33. Boult, however, has only 759 Test runs in total. Anderson is the only man in Test history to have more than 1,000 at an average below 10.

34. Anderson played his last ODI in 2015. He featured in 194 matches — only Eoin Morgan and Collingwood have played in more for England — before he retired to focus on prolonging his Test career.

35. Despite having been inactive for seven years, during which England have had their most successful period of white-ball cricket, Anderson remains his country’s leading wicket-taker in the format by some margin: he took 269, ahead of Darren Gough (234) and Broad (178).

36. On July 5 last year, Anderson dismissed Kent’s Heino Kuhn for his 1,000th first-class wicket. It was part of a career-best haul of seven for 19.

37. Since his Lancashire debut in 2001, Anderson has played for the county in every summer except 2020.

38. Since his Auckland debut in 2008, he has never played for them again — taking two for 95 in a solitary outing as he sought to find form during England’s tour to New Zealand.

39. He once told Mitchell Johnson to shush.

40. Anderson has played in only 44 T20s in his career. Four appearances for Lancashire in 2014 — the last being a Blast final in which he took nought for 52 — are all he has to show for himself since 2011.

Originally published as James Anderson at 40: Red hair, reverse-sweeps and lots of wickets