“It’s a weird feeling when you’ve done something for 20 years and then all of a sudden you’ve got to find something else to do,” said James Anderson in the lead up to his valedictory Test match at Lord’s.
Speaking on the Tailenders podcast, Anderson joked he was tempted to speak to the careers adviser at his daughter’s prospective school as he considers his options.
Judging by his Championship outing for Lancashire at Southport last week, when he took the first six Nottinghamshire wickets to fall and finished with match figures of 8-64, the 41-year-old is in fine fettle as he limbers up for his 188th and final Test match.
Lancs are hopeful that Anderson will continue to play at county level after his farewell party at the Home of Cricket, but this will be the final opportunity to see him in England whites, back at the venue where he made his Test debut in 2003. Come the finale, there’s unlikely to be a dry eye in the house.
It took a friendly but firm tap on the shoulder from Brendon McCullum to convince Anderson to step aside as England start to build for the future, preparing the ground for the Ashes tour of 2025/26. That was reflected in the 14-strong squad selected for the first two Tests of their series against West Indies, with three uncapped players included.
With Jonny Bairstow’s form on a downward curve and Ben Foakes not fitting the Bazball blueprint, the selectors have called up Jamie Smith to keep wicket. The 23-yearold promptly made 100 and 70 in Surrey’s top-of-the-table clash with Essex, playing with the class and aggression which made him the standout candidate.
His selection comes with an element of risk, though. A regular behind the stumps for his county in T20 cricket, Smith has only kept wicket in 19 of his 59 first-class matches and just twice in the County Championship since the start of the 2023 season.
“It’s not something I’ve done too many times in my career to date,” Smith said of red-ball keeping in an interview with Wisden Cricket Monthly. “But I’m very happy to keep wicket. It’s an opportunity I’m looking to take and it’s not one of those things where suddenly overnight I’m going to become Surrey wicketkeeper and the best wicketkeeper in the world – it will take a bit of time to build into things and hopefully game by game I keep getting better.”
Smith revealed that Foakes, who had the gloves in India, was one of the first people to congratulate him on his call-up, and immediately offered him advice on the bowlers he will be keeping to when he makes his debut at Lord’s.
They could include his Surrey teammate Gus Atkinson, who toured India over the winter but didn’t get a run out, and Dillon Pennington, the strapping Nottinghamshire fast bowler who Rob Key described as this season’s surprise package. Both will have the opportunity to learn from the best this summer, with Anderson taking on a mentor role within the set-up after he’s hung up his boots.
New kid on the block: Dillon Pennington may get his chance at Lord’s
PICTURES: Alamy
“He’d not really been on our radar at all,” admitted Key of Pennington. “We saw him in under-19s cricket… but this summer, watching him in the county game, I’ve loved watching him bowl, as have all of us involved in selection. He has that little bit of pace, he’s relentless in his consistency, the angle that he bowls as well, and he’s really kicked on this year.”
Atkinson and Pennington will be competing with Chris Woakes and Matt Potts to join Anderson in England’s XI for Lord’s, with Shoaib Bashir preferred to his Somerset teammate Jack Leach as the spinner.
They will face an inexperienced West Indies team who sit a lowly eighth in the Test rankings, but Kraigg Brathwaite’s side will be buoyed by their stirring win at the Gabba in January, their first Test victory on Australian soil since 1997.
Even in the absence of Kemar Roach, who has been ruled out of the series with a knee injury, their pace attack is spicy. Shamar Joseph was the hero in that famous victory in Brisbane, taking 7-68 with a damaged toe to skittle the Aussies, and his namesake Alzarri can be devastating when he finds his rhythm. They will be joined by Jayden Seales, the 22-year-old who burst onto the scene in 2021 before being sidelined by injury. His early-season form at Sussex served as a reminder of his bountiful talent, and he’s not short on confidence – Seales recently revealed his ambition to become the world’s number one fast bowler.
The tourists’ batting is likely to be more of an issue. Putting aside Brathwaite, the rest of their specialist batters have nine Test caps between them, and no centuries. Zachary McCaskie, a contender to open alongside Brathwaite, only made his first-class debut last year, while Mikyle Louis, a top-order batter from St Kitts, has seven professional red-ball appearances to his name since debuting in February.
Andre Coley, West Indies’ red-ball coach, acknowledges it’s a huge step up to be facing England’s all-time leading wicket-taker in alien conditions. “Any Test match they play now is going to be a test. Even at home it’s going to be a test. Australia away was a test. So it’s really about managing expectations and making sure we’re facing everything with a clear mind.”
Perhaps easier said than done with Anderson standing at his mark on the hallowed Lord’s turf, plotting how to add to his extraordinary, unrepeatable tally of 700 Test wickets, with 30,000 fans eagerly awaiting their slice of history.
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