![Jimmy Anderson enjoyed a 21-year Test career. Picture Matt Bedford Jimmy Anderson enjoyed a 21-year Test career. Picture Matt Bedford](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/AFKkRPHwQbXhqFfb42nFTx/4b92ade7-878c-4ab3-8359-be34ba2adaa3.jpg/r0_0_1598_1175_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
HE'S been a good bowler, Jimmy Anderson, a bloody good bowler, but perhaps not quite as good as the Poms would have us believe.
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Anderson bowed out this week after a remarkable 21-year, 188-Test career that delivered 704 wickets, the most by any paceman in the game's history.
It would seem fair to assume that, in this era when the rise of T20 has become an ever-growing threat to the traditionalists' format, no quick is likely to get anywhere near his record tally in the future.
A vintage Rolls Royce of an athlete at the age of 41, he was still going strong right until the end, taking 1-26 and 3-32 in England's first-Test victory against the West Indies at Lord's.
There seemed no reason why he couldn't play on indefinitely, and apparently that was his intention until a recent pre-season meeting at which he was informed England would be looking for younger legs, in preparation for their next Ashes campaign Down Under, allowing him a farewell Test.
Skipper Ben Stokes labelled Anderson "the greatest fast bowler to play the game", an opinion shared by many English supporters, including a long-time mate of mine, who was referring to him as the "GOAT" in text messages this week.
Naturally, no self-respecting Aussie is going to cop that nonsense.
Anderson is a magician, a maestro, a practitioner of such expertise that he has made a tough job seem effortless, over after over, for more than two decades. There has been no more skilful fast bowler in Test history, I'll grant him that. Jimmy Anderson could swing a grapefruit around a corner. But the greatest quick of all? It's a big call.
I've been a cricketing tragic since the days of black-and-white TV, and if I had to pick a team to play for my life, there'd be no spot in it for Jimmy Anderson.
The new ball, and choice of ends, would be offered to the one and only DK Lillee, who is still the finest I've seen.
Sharing the pill with him would be the nightmarish West Indian Curtly Ambrose - who terrorised batsman around the world for a decade - and Pakistan's Wasim Akram, the perfect foil with his left-arm angle and reverse swing at express pace.
Other nominees worthy of consideration include Malcolm Marshall, Glenn McGrath, Richard Hadlee, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Waqar Younis, Allan Donald, Jeff Thomson, Dale Steyn, Bob Willis, Mitchell Johnson, Stuart Broad and Pat Cummins.
The main advantage Anderson has enjoyed over many of the aforementioned is that he has played the bulk of his career (106 of 188 Tests, or 56 per cent) on home turf. Even more so during the twilight years of his career.
In those 106 Tests in England, he took 438 wickets (62 per cent of his overall haul).
Having spent three of the best years of my life playing club cricket in England, I can assure you that more often than not, its conditions are conducive to fast bowling.
The temperature rarely exceeds 28 degrees, so there is less physical duress than during a scorching summer Down Under.
Quite often there is cloud cover and dull light, which helps the ball swing and makes it harder to see, and greener, softer pitches that seam around more than the harder, batsman-friendly decks in Australia.
Moreover, at Test level, the Poms use the Dukes brand of ball, which is famous for swinging far more prodigiously than its Aussie counterpart, made by Kookaburra.
Anderson dominated in England, but so do most great quicks, regardless of nationality. McGrath, for example, played in 14 Ashes Tests in the Old Dart and claimed an eye-boggling 87 wickets at an average of 19.3. On the flip side, in 21 Tests in Australia, Anderson took 68 wickets at 34.0.
The greatest fast bowlers, for mine, have been not just respected, but feared by opposition batsmen over long periods of time.
And with that in mind, I'm not sure if Anderson is even England's best ever.
If you were an opening batsman, and you had to choose between Jimmy Anderson and Harold Larwood in their prime, who would you rather face?