James Anderson

About James Anderson

James Anderson is an international cricketer from England, listed as a bowler. Career years: 2002 - 2024. Batting style: left-hand bat. Bowling style: right-arm fast-medium. Date of birth: 1982-7-30. Career highlights — ODI: 273 runs at avg 7.58; T20I: 1 runs at avg 1. Explore complete career numbers, debut matches and match-by-match form below.

James Anderson biography

The greatest fast bowler England produced, and the world's most prolific in Tests, James Anderson, over the course of a two-decade career went where no one of his ilk had before, sustaining performance of the highest order over 40,000 balls and taking 704 Test wickets.

His command of swing bowling, especially on his home grounds, was the stuff of legend, and the records he chalked up bore witness. He was an integral part of three victorious Ashes campaigns, and he took 15 or more wickets in series against Australia, India and South Africa 11 times.

When Anderson's 500th Test wicket came in September 2017 against West Indies, he became only the sixth player, and third fast bowler, after Glenn McGrath and Courtney Walsh, to reach the landmark. Few would have thought then that he had another seven years of top-drawer fast bowling, and 40% as many wickets as he had taken till then, in the tank. What he lost in speed, he more than made up for in guile and ball-whisperer's cunning, stripping white-ball cricket out of his schedule to thrive in the five-day format.

Anderson had played only three one-day games for Lancashire when he was hurried into England's one-day squad in Australia in 2002-03 as cover for Andy Caddick. In Adelaide he produced a remarkable ten-over stint that cost just 12 runs, earning a World Cup spot; in the game against Pakistan in that tournament, he produced a match-winning spell.

His debut Test, that summer against Zimbabwe, yielded a five-for, and it was followed by an ODI hat-trick against Pakistan, but there was a dip in his fortunes after that for a while, when he was on the periphery of the Test side as he attempted to change his action to avoid injury, affecting his pace and rhythm in the process.

Anderson took six wickets in the Mumbai Test that England won to square the series in India in 2006, and then went on the horror Ashes tour of 2006-07, where he did about as well as the rest of his side, who were wiped 5-0. The World Cup in the West Indies that followed was a little better (he took two wickets apiece in three games).

A second coming materialised in Wellington on the 2007-08 tour of New Zealand, where Anderson and Stuart Broad were paired for the first time. The same opponents were blown away at Trent Bridge (Anderson 7 for 43) a few weeks later, and he took five in the consolation win against South Africa at The Oval that finished that series 2-1 in favour of the visitors. Of his 11 wickets in the two Tests against West Indies in 2009, nine came at Chester-le-Street at under 14 runs apiece.

In 2010, Anderson came of age comprehensively, turning from an occasional purveyor of "magic balls" to a relentless line-and-length merchant dealing in dot balls, building pressure and reaping the reward. He was unhittable in every sense, with a miserly economy rate and a range of weapons that made him a threat on every surface. A career-best 11-wicket haul against Pakistan at Trent Bridge that year was the prelude to a revelatory tour of Australia where he took 24 wickets.