James Anderson retires from International cricket
James Anderson had announced in May 2024 that he would retire after playing the first Test match of the series against West Indies in July. Now England has defeated West Indies by a huge margin of an innings and 114 runs in the first Test match played at Lord’s. With this, James Anderson’s international career, which started in 2002, has come to an end. He took 4 wickets in his last match. Some of his unbreakable records:
Highest wicket-taking fast bowler
James Anderson has retired as the highest wicket-taking fast bowler in the world. Anderson played a total of 400 matches in his international career, which started with an ODI match in 2002, in which he has a total of 991 wickets to his name. He took 704 wickets in Test cricket, 269 wickets in ODI format and 18 wickets in T20 cricket. Talking about fast bowlers, Glenn McGrath took the most wickets in international cricket after him, who took 949 wickets. In today’s era, fast bowlers keep getting injured regularly and in such a situation, it seems an impossible task for them to take more than 900 international wickets.
Most Tests for England
James Anderson is in second place, who has announced his retirement after playing his 188th Test match. He trails Sachin Tendulkar who had played 200 test matches throughout his career. Anderson played his first Test match in 2003 and within the next 21 years, he played 188 matches. The second player to play the most Test matches for England is Stuart Broad, who represented England in 167 matches. Among the current players, Joe Root (141) has played the most matches for England. With number of tests in a year in decline, this record seems poised to withstand the test of times.
Fourth bowler in the world to bowl over 40000 deliveries
In his last test appearance, James Anderson became the fourth bowler in the world to have bowled over 40000 deliveries. Former Sri Lankan spinner Muthiah Muralidaran leads the list with 44039 balls bowled.
