Jimmy Anderson’s stubborn refusal to give up has fuelled his greatest achievements | Emma John

Jimmy Anderson could teach Philip Marlowe a thing or two about The Long Goodbye. England’s leading wicket-taker in Tests is of that sporting breed who have no interest in bowing out at the top. Like Andy Murray before him, he has shown little enthusiasm to bow out at all, as long as his body allows him to keep doing the thing he loves: getting opposition batsmen out.

It was little surprise, then, that when Lancashire announced this week they would not be renewing his contract after 25 years, there was no immediate retirement announcement. Instead there was an irked Instagram post, then silence, as the one-club man considered his options. One of those, apparently, was a T10 cricket tournament in Rome. And lo, it is now confirmed that Anderson will lead (and even “co-own”) the Napoli Knights for 12 days next month.

It may not seem an obvious encore to an illustrious red-ball career, but neither was putting himself up for auction in the Indian Premier League at the age of 42, having played no short-format cricket in a decade. Anderson has always been more interested in playing the game than his own ego. Will Italy be the final act for this anti-diva? It seems unlikely: Anderson’s GOAT status has always encompassed that animal’s legendarily stubborn qualities, and his farewell tour now rivals Elton John’s.

Remember the time he and Stuart Broad were dropped from the England squad to tour the West Indies, and everyone assumed both men’s careers were over? That was nearly five years ago. Broad’s retirement in 2023 only made Anderson more determined to continue; by the following March he had his 700th Test wicket. When England’s director of cricket, Rob Key, did call time on his international career that summer, Anderson immediately showed the Bazboys what they were missing, taking seven for 35 on his County Championship return against Nottinghamshire.

Since then there have been two more summers with Lancashire, including 50 championship wickets at 17.68 this year, despite a recurring calf injury. Now that his county, like his country, wants to move on without him, no one will begrudge him a little of his trademark grumpiness. Anderson’s stubborn refusal to give up has, after all, fuelled his greatest achievements.

With his significance to the game well established it’s easy to forget how much turmoil Anderson endured at the beginning of his career, a quarter of a century ago. His first county season put him under an immediate and intense spotlight. Having taken two wickets in two balls in his first game against Surrey, aged 19, he finished the season as Lancashire’s third-highest wicket-taker, just a handful behind his teenage hero Peter Martin.

He was drafted into England’s one‑day international side that winter, before he even had a county cap. Selection for the national side with a wafer-thin CV was not as common as it has become under the current regime (Anderson’s England Academy roommate, Gordon Muchall, assumed it was a joke, and told him to stop packing his gear). And his inexperience was an issue. While his raw pace and prodigious swing could trouble the best – witness the way he out-yorked Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis in England’s 2003 World Cup match against Pakistan – he lacked the wisdom and discipline to marshal his skills. There were wild and expensive spells.

In October 2003 his nascent career was English cricket’s hot topic. Sporting blond tips in his hair, he grabbed a five-fer on Test debut against Zimbabwe, before being taken to pieces by a South African top three of Graeme Smith, Herschelle Gibbs and Gary Kirsten. I was interviewing him for the launch issue of the Wisden Cricketer magazine: wanting to kick off with a bold statement, we put the 20‑year‑old on the cover (in a designer T-shirt, shock horror, rather than traditional whites). Tacitly, and in spite of his rocky start, we were anointing him the future of English cricket.

New to the media carousel, it was natural for Anderson to be shy. But his signature style was already present. “Laconic”, “terse”, and “an exaggerated languor” were phrases I felt fit to include. Beneath the article we ran an analysis of his technique by Bob Cottam, England’s former bowling coach. “He needs to perfect an in-swinger with the new ball,” said Cottam, who nevertheless confirmed that “with experience, Jimmy can become a world-class bowler, the attributes are all there”.

What strikes me just as much is how Anderson, even at that stage, recognised his greatest strength as “being able to come back stronger”. It was something he would have to draw on plenty in the years that followed as his form – and selection – remained inconsistent. There was an unsuccessful remodelling of his action and a stress fracture. It wasn’t until he paired with Broad to open the bowling on the 2007-08 New Zealand tour that his performances began to bear out that almost outrageous early promise.

Between the 90s and the noughties England were on a desperate hunt for new heroes. Plenty of all-rounders suffered under the burden of that cursed appellation, “the new Botham”. Anderson’s rapid propulsion from Burnley CC to the World Cup stage was followed, predictably, by a backlash of scepticism. It didn’t just take determination to weather that: it took devotion. Anderson’s obsessive love of bowling saw him through.

It’s also why he improved so much as he aged – always evolving, experimenting, developing a mastery of swing and seam bowling few could match. His early days at Lancashire may have impressed but no one could have predicted he would finish as one of the all-time England greats. The “future of English cricket” secured his legacy through a relentless dedication to his craft. It should be no wonder to anyone that he’d like to continue practising it.