New Chapter
Jimmy Anderson’s rise to fame was meteoric. Carol Wilson takes a look back at an amazing international cricketing career that lasted for 21 years. Photography: Robert Wilson
The end of Jimmy Anderson’s Test cricket career drew one chapter to a close and opened a new one, in every sense.
The Burnley-born cricketer’s autobiography ‘Jimmy Anderson: Finding the Edge’ delves into what made him England’s highest Test wicket-taker of all time – from being bullied at school to the on-field rivalries and off-field heartache.
“As a player, you don’t get a chance to reflect much – there’s always the next over to bowl, the next game to play – and so I can’t wait to get into this, to tell the story of the journey so far, because it’s been truly unforgettable,” he says of his book, which is an honest, revealing and at times, moving account of his life both in and out of cricket.
Given the career he carved out for himself it is hard to imagine that, growing up in East Lancashire, Anderson dreamed of being someone else – somewhere else. Little did he know that he would travel the world doing what he loved most in the world.
But he had to endure some pain to get there, both physical and emotional.
Anderson describes school as a tough time for him and how one day, he walked halfway to Heptonstall with a ham sandwich to escape it. Anything to avoid those who tormented him.
Cricket became his escape and ultimately his ‘family’. Anderson, who was inspired by sporting greats like Boris Becker and Daley Thompson as a child, feels like he found himself after finding like-minded people at Burnley Cricket Club.
His rise from the second team at Turf Moor to Lancashire to England was meteoric. His international career began at the age of just 20, lasted for 21 years and included four Ashes victories.
He claimed the wicket of Australia’s Adam Gilchrist on his England debut – in a one-day match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 15th December 2002.
His Test debut came five months later, against Zimbabwe at Lord’s, where he took five wickets in an England win and had his named etched on the Lord’s honours board.
Lord’s is where it all ended after a total of 188 Tests and 704 Test match wickets, two shy of the tallies of legendary spinners Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan but more than any other pace bowler in the history of the game.
England became the number one cricketing nation while he was at the peak of his bowling powers and it was a game, a career, a life and lifestyle that he desperately did not want to walk away from.
Anderson explains how the decision to retire was one that was made for him, by Brendon McCullum, head coach of the England men’s Test team and captain Ben Stokes, with the crushing blow delivered in a bar of a Manchester hotel.
He recalls in the book: “As I walk towards them it hits me cold. This isn’t a team appraisal, is it? I feel like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, ushered into a room under the impression that I’m going to get made, only to be shot.”
He concedes that is probably how his story was meant to be written, having the whole process taken out of his hands and learning to navigate it as it all unfolded with one last hurrah and Lord’s ovation.
The book, written with Felix White and published by Blink Publishing, travels at a pace as quick and sharp as Anderson’s bowling, with the 293 pages separated into 55 mostly bite-sized chapters.
Anderson, now 42, offers a dressing room view of some of the more memorable cricketing moments, such as Kevin Pietersen’s ‘textgate’ and from a more personal perspective the rivalries he shared with Michael Clarke and Sachin Tendulkar, alongside his friendships with Alastair Cook and Stuart Broad.
Behind his cricketing fame and profile is a family man, who details his experiences of personal loss and the impact becoming a husband and father had on him, both on and off the field.
Of the birth of his second daughter Ruby, a sister for Lola, in the midst of an Ashes series in Australia, he wrote: “They are going to teach me that cricket is not the only thing in the world for me to live for and this in turn is going to help teach me to not grip it as tight, to let it flow through me, let it be whatever it is.”
Reflecting on his final Test, he writes: “Suck it in, I tell myself and allow this to happen, it is magical to experience this. Not many will. Once upon a time I dreamed of being this person. Be him one more time before he has to go. Chris Woakes gives me a hug as it calms and as I reach the end of my run-up, waiting to bowl my first ball I flash back for a moment to my debut, at this very same mark, on this same patch of grass. Then, I trembled with nerves, questioning whether I belonged. Here, I just breathe in, let go, remind myself what ball I’m going to bowl and set off.”
‘Jimmy Anderson: Finding the Edge’ is available in hardback from all good booksellers £25.
