Jimmy Anderson leaves the Test stage on the back of emphatic England win over West Indies

So, as Jimmy Anderson prepares to embrace the Summer of 42 – his birthday falls on July 30 – he now has those dreaded words next to his name, ‘former international cricketer’. To say that it has been quite a journey would be a massive understatement. Jayden Seales, his only wicket in the first innings of his final Test, was in diapers when Anderson first played an ODI for England, in Melbourne in December 2002. Joshua Da Silva, the last of his 704 Test victims, was a toddler when Anderson made his debut in the longest format against Zimbabwe in May 2003.

Almost fittingly, it ended where it began, at Lord’s, the home of cricket. Growing up in the neglected north-west of England in the Margaret Thatcher years, the young Anderson’s biggest sporting dream was to play for Burnley FC. But the Clarets’ loss was cricket’s gain, and though questions abounded over the awkwardness of his early action, there was little doubt about his potential when he was thrust into the fray ahead of the 2003 World Cup.

Figures of 4-29 against Pakistan in Cape Town made the world sit up and take notice. But though he finished as England’s all-time leading wicket-taker in ODIs with 269, his best years came long before Eoin Morgan and Trevor Bayliss modernised England’s white-ball cricket. By the time the World Cup was clinched in a thriller at Lord’s in 2019, and the T20 World Cup won at the MCG in 2022, Anderson was merely a proud spectator on the sidelines.

For the last nine years of his storied career, there was only red-ball cricket. And in that time, he reaped more than 300 Test wickets, more than the likes of Sir Fred Trueman had managed across an entire career. Initially pigeonholed as someone who excelled only in seam-friendly conditions in England, Anderson worked on his old-ball skills tirelessly. By the end, few could bowl as adroitly even on the driest of Asian pitches.