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Blond highlights: Keeping pace with Anderson’s remarkable 20-year Test career
By Dan Walsh
More than 20 years ago, Australian cricket fans got their first look at a peroxide-tipped James Anderson at the MCG. He went for eight an over in a one-day international infamous for Shane Warne’s shoulder injury and the diuretics scandal that followed.
Seven-hundred Test wickets later, at 8pm on Wednesday (AEST), Australian fans get one last, lingering glimpse as Anderson calls time on what will be a 188-Test career.
Jimmy Anderson: the 2002 vintage. Credit: Getty Images
The blond tips are long gone, but one of the greatest pacemen of all time remains, still hooping it around corners three weeks shy of his 42nd birthday.
Nine wickets against the West Indies in his Test farewell at Lord’s this week would take Anderson past Warne’s 708 scalps. We look back on a few of his finest moments in the Test arena.
Jimmy Anderson’s Test career
- 2003-2009: 148 wickets at 34.85
- 2010-2017: 374 wickets at 24.37
- 2018-2024: 178 wickets at 24.11
Anderson’s revenge in Adelaide – 2010-11 Ashes
Australia wasn’t kind to Anderson in his early years, and seldom is to swing bowlers still finding their range. Five wickets at 82 from the 2006-07 whitewash, his first Ashes tour, led to him being dismissed by fans and opponents alike.
Jimmy Anderson knocks over Ricky Ponting in Adelaide.Credit: YouTube
When England returned four years later under Andrew Strauss, Anderson was immense and bristling at his critics. He took 24 wickets at 26, dismissing modern greats Michael Clarke and Ricky Ponting three times each across the series. After England demoralised the home side with a second innings 1-517 for a draw in Brisbane, Anderson destroyed them in Adelaide.
His first seven balls had Simon Katich run out, then Ponting and Clarke nicking to second slip. Australia were 3-2 and never recovered.
Jimmy does it all himself – 2013 at Trent Bridge
Again, Anderson’s overall Ashes record of 117 wickets at almost 36 belies his impact against the old enemy when it mattered most. At Trent Bridge in 2013, he set up England’s series win with an indomitable performance – his only 10-wicket Ashes haul.
Michael Clarke is sent on his way at Trent Bridge.Credit: YouTube
His first-innings 5-85 reduced Australia to 9-117, before Ashton Agar almost cracked a century at No.11. In the second dig, Anderson was the destroyer again with 5-73 in the visitors’ pursuit of 311 to win.
Brad Haddin and James Pattinson nearly got them home, with 65 for the last wicket, before Anderson knocked Haddin over for a tense 14-run victory, and an eventual 3-0 series win.
The sultan of swing returns – 2008 at Trent Bridge
Anderson’s Test career began with a five-wicket haul against Zimbabwe as a 21-year-old in 2003. But his first five years in Tests were littered with blown-out figures. Six months before this home series against New Zealand, he was dropped from the England side.
At Trent Bridge, though, he was back with a bang, knocking over the first six batters, including Brendon McCullum’s off-stump with a delicious in-swinger, before finishing with then career-best figures of 7-43. This was effectively the comeback party for Anderson 2.0.
An Indian summer – 2012 at Kolkota
Match figures of 6-127 don’t look like those of a world-beater, but that’s what Anderson was in the third Test at Eden Gardens.
India skipper MS Dhoni acknowledged as much, describing Anderson’s efforts in thankless, spin-friendly Indian conditions as the difference between the sides in an enthralling series.
Anderson toiled without pause against a line-up of Sehwag, Pujara, Tendulkar and Kohli, finding reverse swing and persistently challenging the locals with three wickets in each innings.
In the past decade, Anderson has taken 50 wickets while touring the subcontinent at 23 apiece – genuinely world-beating returns for any fast bowler in that part of the world.
An ageless Ashes foe – 2017-18 and 2021-22
England were sent home 0-4 both times on their last two Test trips to these shores, Joe Root’s captaincy career jettisoned along the way in 2023.
Matthew Hayden once used to march halfway down the wicket to a young Anderson, but Australia’s dominance in both recent series never extended to Lancashire’s finest in his late 30s.
The day-night Adelaide Test of 2017 delivered Anderson’s best figures in Australia of 5-43, and he went at just 2.11 runs an over throughout the series while the other English bowlers were flayed to all parts of the country.
Four years later, he was inexplicably left out of the first Test in Brisbane. By the time Boxing Day rolled around, the series was on the line. England crumbled before Scott Boland. But Anderson was still immense in trying to prevent the inevitable, producing a magnificent 23-over, 10-maiden, 4-33 haul as a fitting reminder of his longevity and class.
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