At an age where most pacers have retired and have hung up the boots for a considerable while, Jimmy Anderson has experienced the apex of his bowling performances.
In a Test career that now spans 20 years, the 40-year-old has had a career almost in reverse that comes across as though he’s been ageing backwards.
Ironically, the late great English bowler Bob Willis claimed at the beginning of Anderson’s career that he wouldn’t last more than five years because of his unusual action. Anderson keeps his head down when releasing the ball instead of looking up as is the norm for most players.
Willis claimed that this would curtail his career because of the strain it could create on his body.
The first five years of Anderson’s Test career were somewhat of a pained existence. In 23 Tests, he averaged 37.92. The majority of the Tests he played had come at home, where he featured in 14 Tests, taking 52 wickets at an average of 32.07.
Anderson’s debut actually began with a bang. Beginning his career at Lord’s against Zimbabwe on the 22nd of May 2003, Anderson took five wickets in his first innings bowled at the top level to help England win by an innings and 92 runs. In his first two Tests, Anderson would average 20.27 against Zimbabwe.
His next series, though, against another African opponent in South Africa would be much tougher. Despite being England’s leading wicket-taker for the series, Anderson would average 39.86. The newly-crowned South African captain, Graeme Smith, took a particular liking to Anderson’s bowling, scoring 157 runs from 174 balls bowled throughout the series whilst only being dismissed by Anderson once.
In the first five years of his career, Anderson would not have a single calendar year where he averaged under 30. His best year was in 2004 where he had a bowling average of 31.28.
Away from home, Anderson’s bowling average was 51.13. His best figures away from home would come in New Zealand and India, where he took 5/73 and 4/40 respectively.
In the final Test on England’s tour of India, England would post 400 runs in their first innings. Anderson’s 4/40 in the second innings would leave India reeling, eventuating in a 212-run victory for the Poms who were able to leave India with a drawn 1-1 series.
Anderson’s five-for in New Zealand came in Wellington in 2008 where he took the wickets of the entire Black Caps top five to rock the Kiwis to 6-113 after England had posted 342. England would go on to win by 126 runs.
In the next five-year portion of his career from 23 May 2008 to 2013, Anderson would come into his own at home, averaging 27.60 for the period and 25.13 in England. While being known as a fearsome exponent of swing bowling even early in his Test career, Anderson was able to clean up his line and lengths to become a bowler at the forefront of the minds of batsmen the world over when they touched down in England.
Jimmy Anderson (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Gone was the bowler who was equally capable of brilliant jaffas as he was to delivering infuriating looseners as he had become one who gave the batsmen little respite while hooping the ball around corners in favourable English conditions.
While Anderson still wasn’t perfect away from home with an average of 31.64, he had a couple of standout overseas tours.
The first was the historic 2010-11 Ashes in Australia where England were able to defeat their most bitter rivals at their own home for the first time in 24 years. Anderson was a major part of England’s Ashes triumph, averaging 26.04 while taking 24 wickets to become the leading wicket-taker of the series. The next best was Chris Tremlett, who took 17 wickets.
A major facet of Anderson’s brilliant Ashes campaign was his adoption of the wobble-seam delivery. After watching the Pakistani seamer Mohammed Asif bowl the wobble-seam in the now infamous 2010 Pakistan-England series in England, Anderson began to work on the wobble-seam with the help of England’s bowling coach, the Australian David Saker.
The reasoning behind the wobble-seam was to get the ball to do something different with the ball when the Kookaburra ball loses its swing as it gets older and the conventional swing that Anderson thrived on became harder to get.
Anderson would also find success in Sri Lanka in 2012, where he averaged 21.77. He would take 5/72 in the first innings of the first Test in Galle that Sri Lanka would eventually win by 75 runs on the back of two Rangana Herath six-fors.
In the second and final Test, Anderson would take 3/62 to help skittle Sri Lanka out for just 275. In return, England would put on a mammoth 460 and would close out the Test as eight-wicket victors, successfully chasing down the final innings target of 97.
From May 23 2013 to May 22 2018, Anderson’s bowling average continued to improve. Within this timespan, he averaged 23.62. Most of his success came at home, where he averaged an insane 20.73. However, his away average was still 31.47.
The two places that Anderson had the most success in were New Zealand and the West Indies, where he averaged 25 and 18. Both these Test hosts are hospitable to swing which Anderson is an exponent of.
This dichotomy in performances between Test-playing countries that provided swing and those that didn’t created the perception that Anderson could only flourish in conditions that stacked the odds in his favour, with him routinely being referred to as ‘Clouderson’.
This last five-year period to the present has proved to the contrary. Anderson has thrived both home and away, experiencing the peak of his career from the age of 35 to 40. In the 43 Tests he’s played in this timeframe, he has had an average of 21.25, with his away average being 20.08.
His worst bowling average in any Test host is in the West Indies where he’s averaged 24.50 with the ball. In the spin-friendly Asia where pace bowlers have to toil hard for their wickets, he has averaged a ridiculous 18.52.
In Pakistan this previous WTC cycle from August 2021 to 11 June 2023, pace bowlers averaged 40.11. Anderson in Pakistan has averaged less than half of that at 18.50.
Gone are the days when Anderson could be called a home-track bully as he has entered the form of his life in his late 30s and at 40 and dominated all across the world these past few years.
James Anderson is a curious case. The older he gets the better he’s been and has defied all conventional wisdom by reaching remarkable heights as a pacer at his age.
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