I knew right away he was really special
I GAVE JIMMY HIS DEBUT AND...
Jimmy Anderson was like a breath of fresh air when he came into the england squad with a lot of us at a low point during another Ashes defeat 15 years ago. We had lost players left, right and centre, and, more importantly, i’d lost the plot as captain when Anderson was plucked virtually from nowhere to join a beaten side in Australia.
Just to have someone so raw and so fresh coming into the set-up gave me a lift and provided a reminder to those of us who had perhaps gone a little stale what playing for your country really meant.
i had played with a lot of english-type bowlers, hitting the deck and concentrating on line and length, when all of a sudden this lad i had never seen before came in and clearly had something different.
Jimmy joined us for the one-day leg of that Australian tour and then we gave him his Test debut that summer here at Lord’s against Zimbabwe, so it was lovely that he got his 500th wicket yesterday back at the home of cricket.
you could see straight away that he was skilful and just seemed to have a different trajectory from other bowlers i’d captained. He was very full in his length then and quicker than you thought.
He soon showed me at close quarters just how good he potentially was when he got me out first ball when i was playing for essex against Lancashire with an in-swinger with no discernible change of action. it was a sign of things to come.
What has impressed me since is how well he has looked after himself, with the help of central contracts, because he looks no different physically from that young tearaway from Burnley Cricket Club with the red streak in his hair.
As a bowler, of course, he has just got better and better, learning so many new skills along the way, and has never been happy to settle for what he had already got. He has even been talking to Toby roland- Jones this season about seam position to try to pick something up from the newest member of the attack.
Then there was Anderson’s ability to learn the wobble seam delivery from Australia’s stuart Clark that has become an important weapon in his armoury as his career has advanced to the stage where he is a true great of the game.
i said in my autobiography that Jimmy was the hardest person i’d captained, in terms of getting inside his head, and i think people did not understand what i meant. it wasn’t that he was a difficult character, it was just i wasn’t sure that what i was telling him was sinking in. But i know now that not only was he taking it all in but he was like a sponge soaking up as much information as possible.
it has not been all plain sailing and the summer Jimmy spent as the perennial 12th man in 2005 when england were contesting one of the greatest of all Ashes series was both a big setback and a defining time in his development.
i’m sure he felt he was good enough to be in that side but to be fair to england they had four other excellent fast bowlers in steve Harmison, Andrew Flintoff, matthew Hoggard and simon Jones and never had to call on Jimmy.
The success of that side seemed to spur him on to prove people wrong and once that attack began to disintegrate he came to the fore to the point where he has become only the sixth man to take 500 Test wickets.
The comment made by then england bowling coach david saker a few years ago about Jimmy being the most skilful bowler in the world is as true now as it was then and that is accurate in most conditions around the world.
yes, Anderson has taken 19 five-wicket hauls at home compared to four away but it is true to say that most seamers are better in their own conditions. He is a master with the duke ball but pretty good with the Kookaburra too.
How long will Anderson carry on? He is fit enough mentally and physically to lead the attack for some time. And that is a very encouraging prospect for england.