The man with the killer arm is examining his magic finger. It’s the middle one on his right hand. The one that steered every ball and told so many other guys where to go. The one that died and, like his playing career, is suddenly showing signs of life.
‘The tip is the last part of my hand that touched the seam before it was released,’ he says, and we should add that the person in this London hotel is James Anderson. There’s a distinction to be made here, because Jimmy isn’t in the room yet.
Jimmy is the excitable, more aggressive chap we often saw on cricket pitches, a breaker of records who called Alastair Cook a ‘c***’ the first time they met. But James is the quiet, shy half of the same brain.
And in his quiet and shy way he is talking about the thick callus on the finger that delivered 40,037 balls in Tests for England and took 704 wickets, before the music was switched off against his will in the summer.
‘When I feel it, the tip of the finger is still quite hard,’ he says. ‘I used to get blisters on it and after wearing through a couple of layers of skin it just became a callus – take in training, one-day games, Tests, probably 100,000 balls went into that. More maybe.
Jimmy Anderson has entered himself into the IPL auction at the age of 42
He retired from international cricket in the summer, and has a thick callus on the middle finger of his bowling hand after playing for over two decades at the highest level
Anderson sat down with Mail Sport’s Riath Al-Samarrai (left) this week to explain why he is making an IPL comeback at this stage in his career
‘You know what, it’s a bit softer after six months not playing. But there’s a little nick on it, on the side here – I did it putting up a post box at home the other day.’
That’s a story about life in retirement and the great void, as we sometimes describe it, when legends realise they are too old to play bat and ball forever.
At the age of 41, Anderson didn’t make that call – it was made for him, in a different hotel. It stung.
But then came fresh news on Tuesday afternoon, because Anderson has decided he isn’t done after all. At 42, something had stirred in his mind. Like the finger, a feeling has returned. And so he has put himself forward for the Indian Premier League and the possibility, if he is picked at auction in three weeks, of a last hurrah in a format he hasn’t played for a decade.
Anderson is nodding along to a question he expected, because this is his first newspaper interview since that scenario came to light. His answer will swing its way to Harry Brook and an epiphany he had last month, when he toured Pakistan in his new life as England’s bowling consultant and he picked up the ball one day.
‘I’ve been thinking about it for a while,’ he says, and he starts his run-up with a whisper.
‘I don’t know if it’s a stupid idea or whether there’s actually something in it, and I think it’s now or never, basically. I can’t come back to it in two or three years and think I’m going give it a go. It is a little itch to scratch, and maybe I won’t get picked, but I just want to see.
‘I had started to think recently about playing some form of cricket again and if I can’t play Test cricket, do I want to keep playing red ball for Lancashire? That takes a lot out of you, but four overs feels manageable. I’ve never played IPL, learning a bit more will help me with coaching and I’m just intrigued.
Anderson has admitted he called Alastair Cook a ‘c***’ when they first met, but they went on to become best friends on the cricket field
Anderson revealed he got Harry Brook (right) out in the nets in Pakistan, which convinced him he still has something to offer as a player
‘I feel like I’m still fit and can take wickets. I know I can bowl.’
With that comes the feintest of smiles. ‘When we were in Pakistan, I was doing nets with the lads, helping out.
‘I got Harry Brook – he nicked one behind if I remember rightly. I thought to myself, yeah, there was something still there. Let’s see if it goes anywhere.’
The smile has become a grin and that same finger is tapping harder against the side of his chair. Lovely to see you again, Jimmy.
James is back and we are discussing harder times. Sadder times that drove the good times and explain an addiction.
The room at the Ham Yard Hotel, around the corner from Piccadilly Circus, is lined with books and he has a brilliant, emotive one out this week. Finding the Edge, they have titled it, just like he did with Brook a few weeks back, and Anderson’s edge goes back to Burnley.
All roads of his story go to Burnley and, for a painful period in his life, not enough went the other way. He felt trapped, both in his own town and his own skin, a 14-year-old boy who dreamt of ‘being someone else’.
None of this was publicly known about a giant who spent so long on our screens, but there were kids at St Theodore’s who picked on him. Mercilessly. Being short, less than 5ft tall, was one thing and his awkwardness around others amplified the target on his back.
He remembers in the pages of his autobiography how one day he was pinned down and had a pasty rubbed in his face and another time when, following a minor disagreement, a fellow pupil headbutted him flush in the face.
He would lie to his mother about how the blood got on his tracksuit and countless other occasions when he bunked off and trekked alone to the top of a hill overlooking the town. On the same bench day after day, he would sit there in a deeply unhappy state.
It’s the untold trauma behind his rise, before he found his tribe, which is the rawest summary of how cricket came to save him.
‘Being in cricket transformed me, really,’ he says. ‘It was how I came to connect with people. Put me on a field, football or cricket, I could connect.
Anderson spoke openly about the bullying he experienced as a child growing up
Anderson says he feels ‘transformed’ when playing cricket after his difficult early years
‘But school wasn’t a great time for me, as I’ve written. A bit lost, a bit lonely. I didn’t feel like I had any friends at school. I wasn’t particularly academic and I just wanted to be outside playing sport and in a way that was how I resolved things. It was a tough point.’
The depths of those thoughts are illustrated by an event that occurred a few years back, long after Anderson became famous as the leader of England’s attack – the local council got in touch with the hope of renaming a road leading the school as James Anderson Way and he declined.
‘I wouldn’t want that to be there, if that makes sense,’ he says. ‘It was an honour to be asked but it didn’t feel right.’
One growth spurt changed everything because it changed his cricket and his cricket changed him. Anderson grew more than a foot in six months around the age of 16 or 17, adding 20mph to his deliveries in a blink, and in that new body, in that happier, safer space, James found room for a bit of Jimmy.
Together they would go on the wildest of rides and putting on that England shirt, Anderson writes, was like ‘trying on an alter-ego Superman costume’. He certainly flew. Anderson was part of the first England side to win the Ashes in Australia in 24 years, the first to win a Test series in India in even longer; the guy who lost more days to a medley of calf tears, knee issues and a spinal stress fracture than any English cricketer on record took more Test wickets than any fast bowler of any nationality in history.
And now, a few months after the close of his international career, he’s laughing about his very first ball as a professional, in 2002, aged 20.
‘It was for Lancashire Seconds,’ he says. ‘It was against Surrey in Blackpool. I’m running in, jump into the crease, lose my footing and fell into the stumps. Thankfully there’s no footage.’
A few months later he made his debut for England in a one-day match in Australia and in 2024 he left as the king of a different hill. Funny how life turns out.
It’s interesting, the hold sport can have on a life. For Anderson, it shaped him, defined him, gave him his voice – it’s easy to understand why letting go would be hard for him, perhaps even more than most.
And so he’s mulling over how it ended with England, a curtain that fell against the West Indies at Lord’s in July. He took four wickets, which is possibly vindication of how he felt three months earlier, when he was called to the Dakota Hotel in Manchester and told by England’s management trio of Brendon McCullum, Ben Stokes and Rob Key that it was time for new blood ahead of the Ashes next year.
In his book, Anderson compared it to the scene from Goodfellas, when Joe Pesci’s Tommy arrives at a house thinking he is about to become a made man, only to be shot in the head. In the flesh, he has made peace with it.
‘What I didn’t want to come across in the book is any sort of animosity towards them,’ he clarifies. ‘I’ve been in that position before, when Andrew Strauss said we were going in a different direction (in 2022, only for Anderson to return in a matter of months).
‘But this time, it felt a little more personable. I left that meeting not feeling happy, but not as angry as I thought I would. Retirement is a weird thing – everyone always said you’ll wake up one day and think, “Yeah, I’m done”. I never got that, thought I had more, so maybe I needed someone to tap me on the shoulder.’
Anderson was sent into international retirement at the start of the summer after a frank conversation with Ben Stokes (right), Brendon McCullum (centre) and Rob Key (left)
Anderson admitted his wife Daniella (left) is not happy with the way his retirement was handled
His wife, Daniella, has a marginally different view. ‘She’s not particularly over it,’ he says, but he can laugh about that, just as he can a great many things from a sterling, albeit attritional, career.
To go through his autobiography is to build a portrait of a man battling against a mild paranoia that every day could be his last, whether it was through injuries, or the neuroses brought on by questions around retirement the deeper he got into his thirties.
Was he driven a little by those insecurities? ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I think if you look at anyone that has any success in any sport, there’s always something that’s nagging away, pushing you. But I loved it with England. I really did.’
Naturally he has retained near-daily contact with Stuart Broad, who is the subject of a fun memory, dating to the victorious 2013 Ashes. Trent Bridge, first Test – it was a cracker.
That was the best team Anderson reckons he played in and he took 10 wickets across the two innings, but it got tense towards the end and Jimmy overpowered James.
‘It was probably the best game I played for England,’ he says. ‘But in the middle of a long spell, I was fuming, swearing at everyone over dropped catches. Alastair Cook was captain, and he got Stuart Broad to relay a message, because they were always the two guys who brought me back if I was losing control of myself.
‘Broady comes over and says, “Everyone thinks you’re being a k**b. Can you stop?” Obviously I told him where to go but the did message did get through.’
Anderson bowled England to victory over Australia at Trent Bridge in 2013, but struggled to keep his cool during the game as catches went down
Anderson was told by his bowling partner Stuart Broad to stop being a ‘k**b’
The mention of Cook raises another yarn. Along with Broad, he was Anderson’s closest mate spanning so many teams, despite a first encounter in 2005 that was less than friendly. Anderson is half-smirking, half-cringing at the recollection.
‘He was playing for Essex and had just scored 200 against the touring Australia team and came to play Lancashire,’ he says. ‘For some reason, everyone on the Lancashire team thought he was really arrogant. But he’s obviously not – he’s the nicest man there is – but we swarmed him when we got him out, all 11 of us. I gather from what he told me the next time we met, on a plane to play for England, I may have called him a c***.’
James is quick to admit Jimmy got that one spectacularly wrong. Same for when he advised his wife to keep the noise down when she was in labour with their first of two daughters – suffice to say his shushing of Mitchell Johnson in the 2011 Ashes went down better.
‘The one with my wife, I shouldn’t have included that in the book,’ he adds. ‘Still too soon.’
It would seem he holds no such regrets over the passages about Kevin Pietersen, who he describes to Mail Sport as ‘genius, the most talented batsman I played with and capable of any shot’, but was less impressive as a team-mate.
The latter aspect is explored in his autobiography, homing in on a man ‘driven by everything that came from by being good’, rather than a desire to help the group win. Pietersen’s actions in the wake of the Mumbai bombings in 2008, when as captain he advocated for a quick return to their India tour, swayed by his wish for an IPL contract, eroded trust from Anderson. It disappeared completely in 2012, when Pietersen sent text messages to South African players criticising Strauss.
Anderson was not complimentary about Kevin Pietersen’s qualities as a team-mate in his book
Pietersen sent text messages to South African players criticising Andrew Strauss in 2012, and was then dropped from the England team for good after the disastrous 2013-14 Ashes
‘I just told that part of it how it happened – the Mumbai stuff, the Strauss thing, text-gate,’ Anderson says now. ‘It’s what I thought and probably what I still think.’
Will there be any awkwardness the next time they meet? ‘I don’t have much of a relationship (with Pietersen) anyway so I don’t think I have damaged anything.’
Old habits die hard – the best fast bowlers always have a bouncer up the sleeve.
For Anderson, time will tell if he gets another crack in the competitive arena. Likewise if he sticks with coaching or takes his life in a different direction altogether, like building post boxes.
The hope would be that the game can keep the man with the iffy finger, irrespective of whether it’s James or Jimmy working the magic.
Jimmy Anderson: Finding The Edge is published by Blink Publishing, an imprint of Bonnier Books. Hardback, audiobook and eBook available now.
