There’s only one Jimmy Anderson,’ sung England’s supporters last week, after their man took his 700th Test wicket high in the Himalayan foothills. And it is true.
Never again will there be another pace bowler able to boast that many scalps or play that many Tests (187).
Anderson is a freak of nature, not in what he does – though bowling with that amount of control and skill is mighty impressive – but in his constant hunger for more… more wickets, more overs, more training and more months spent in dressing rooms full of competing egos and smelly socks.
You cannot but marvel at the sheer industry of it. For all the thousands of overs which he has bowled across every format of the game, there will have been a commensurate number bowled in practice.
