Sir James Anderson is set to retire from cricket after Lancashire refused to offer him a new contract for 2027, ending a glittering and record-breaking career for one of England’s finest ever players.
Anderson, 44, tops England’s wickets list for Tests (704) and ODIs (269) after representing his country from 2002 to 2024.
But in light of his retirement, as revealed on Wednesday by Daily Mail Sport, where does the ‘Burnley Express’ rank in the all-time pantheon of great England cricketers?
Here, LAWRENCE BOOTH picks his top 10 men ever to pull on the shirt.
1. Ian Botham
Tests: 102, Runs: 5,200 at 33.54, Wickets: 383 at 28.4
If it weren’t enough that just two bowlers – Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad – took more Test wickets for England than Botham’s 383, he also scored 14 hundreds, and is synonymous with the most outrageous series of all time: the 1981 Ashes.
How good was he in his pomp? Put it this way: in the 1980 Jubilee Test against India in Mumbai, he took six for 58, then scored 114 out of 296, and finished with seven for 48 from 26 tireless overs.
He was England’s man mountain.
Ian Botham was England’s man mountain – and a player who could win a series all by himself
2. Jack Hobbs
Tests: 61, Runs: 5,410 at 56.94
Long before Sachin Tendulkar became known as the ‘Little Master’, Hobbs was the original ‘Master’, an opening batsman of such skill and determination that he scored 12 hundreds against Australia, an Ashes record for England.
He scored roughly half his 199 first-class centuries after the age of 40, and was still playing Tests at 46. The Oval, where he scored a good chunk of the 43,554 first-class runs he made for Surrey, has suitably elegant gates named after him.
Jack Hobbs (left) walking out to bat for Surrey – he was cricket’s original ‘Master’
3. WG Grace
Tests: 22, Runs: 1,098 at 32.29, Wickets: 9 at 26.22
WG wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea: he employed gamesmanship before it was fashionable, and may have hoodwinked an umpire or two.
But, during a first-class career stretching from 1865 to 1908, he was England’s first sporting celebrity, and so far ahead of his cricketing peers as to render null and void the usual objection that he would have struggled in today’s game.
He played both forward and back at a time when batsmen did only one or the other, scored over 54,000 runs and took more than 2,800 wickets. A giant, no matter the era.
4. Joe Root
Tests: 169, Runs: 14,287 at 50.45, Wickets: 74 at 48.09
The only name on this list still playing, Root needs just 1,644 more runs to overtake Tendulkar and become Test cricket’s most prolific scorer of all time.
His 41 red-ball hundreds are eight more than anyone else has managed for England, and he averages over 50 in both Tests and one-day internationals.
Oh, and he’s just become captain again for the second time, answering England’s SOS after the chaotic retirement of Ben Stokes.
Joe Root’s 41 Test hundreds are eight more than anyone else has managed for England, and he averages over 50 in both Tests and one-day internationals
5. James Anderson
Tests: 188, Wickets: 704 at 26.45
No fast bowler of any nation has more Test wickets than Anderson’s 704, and only two spinners – Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne – are ahead of him on the list.
Other bowlers were faster, but few were more skilful at working out a batsman, then working him over. In Asia, he took 92 wickets at 27, settling the argument that he needed English conditions to thrive.
Now that he has called it a day, taking 1,193 first-class wickets with him, the leading current bowler is South Africa and Essex spinner Simon Harmer, with 1,068.
No fast bowler of any nation has more Test wickets than Jimmy Anderson’s 704, and only two spinners – Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne – are ahead of him on the list
6. Walter Hammond
Tests: 85, Runs: 7,249 at 58.45, Wickets: 83 at 37.80
But for Don Bradman, Hammond would have been the undisputed No1 batsman in the world for the decade before the Second World War, and possibly for a few years after it.
His cover drive remains one of the great exclamation marks of English strokeplay, and he once averaged 563 in a two-match series in New Zealand.
On the 1928-29 Ashes tour, he scored four hundreds among his 905 runs – still an England record for a Test series.
But for Don Bradman, Walter Hammond (right) would have been the undisputed No1 batsman in the world for the decade before the Second World War, and possibly for a few years after it
7. Len Hutton
Tests: 79, Runs: 6,971 at 56.67
Hutton was the last England player to hold the individual Test record for runs in an innings, scoring 364 against Australia at the Oval in 1938, and one of only three English captains – along with Mike Brearley and Andrew Strauss – to win the Ashes both home and away.
As a Test opener he made 6,721 runs at 56: no one of any nationality has made more at a higher average.
Had World War Two not intervened, he would probably have broken all sorts of records, and he was not deterred by an injury in the gym which, after surgery, meant his left arm was two inches shorter than his right.
Len Hutton (right) walks out to bat against Australia at the Oval in 1938. He would go on to break the world record for most runs in a Test innings, with 364
8. SF Barnes
Tests: 27, Wickets: 189 at 16.43
Even now, well over 100 years since he signed off from Test cricket with a 14-wicket haul at Durban, Barnes’s figures take the breath away: 189 wickets at 16, including 49 at 10 in that final series in South Africa.
He was not fast, but deadly accurate, and he would snap at anyone who suggested he bowled cutters: ‘I spun it!’
He was an awkward customer, and preferred outsourcing himself to the highest bidders in the northern leagues rather than waste too much time in county cricket. But what a bowler.
9. Alastair Cook
Tests: 161, Runs: 12,472 at 45.35
It’s tempting to wonder how close Cook might have come to Tendulkar had he not quit Test cricket at the age of 33, especially after he signed off with scores of 71 and 147 against India at the Oval in 2018.
That left him with 12,472 Test runs, second in England’s pantheon and over 3,500 clear of third-placed Graham Gooch, once his mentor.
Cook’s talent lay in the marshalling of unglamorous resources: a strong back-foot game, a clip off the hip, and unbreakable concentration. His 766 runs at 127 helped England win in Australia in 2010-11 for the only time since the late 1980s.
Alastair Cook’s 766 runs at 127 helped England win in Australia in 2010-11 for the only time since the late 1980s
Stuart Broad (right) sneaks into the top 10 – not only by sheer weight of numbers but also because he turned it on when it mattered
10. Stuart Broad
Tests: 167, Runs: 3,662 at 18.03, Wickets: 604 at 27.68
With apologies to Ken Barrington, Denis Compton and Fred Trueman, Broad sneaks into the top 10 – not only by sheer weight of numbers (only Anderson has more than his 604 Test wickets) but also because he turned it on when it mattered.
After announcing himself with an Ashes-clinching five-for at the Oval in 2009, his eight for 15 against Australia on his home ground at Trent Bridge in 2015 is arguably the most memorable spell of fast bowling in England’s Test history.
