Legendary England pacer James Anderson, who announced his retirement from the longest format of the game last month, is considering a shock return to white-ball cricket.
Anderson played his farewell Test against the West Indies at Lord’s, finishing with 704 scalps from 188 matches at an average of 26.45. He played the record second-most number of games in the traditional format after Sachin Tendulkar (200).
At 42 years, Anderson is still in “denial” about his playing career being over and hasn’t ruled out his comeback to the shorter formats.
“I might be in a bit of denial because I’m well aware I won’t play for England again but I’ve still not made a decision on my actual cricket career,” Anderson told the PA news agency.
“There’s definitely a bit of intrigue with the shorter formats because I’ve not played any franchise stuff before. Watching The Hundred this year, seeing the ball swing around, it makes me feel like I could do a job there,” he added.
Notably, James Anderson last played a professional white-ball competition in 2019 – a List A game between Lancashire and Hampshire. On the other hand, his last T20 appearance was in 2014 for Lancashire against Warwickshire.
Anderson ended his Test career as the third-highest wicket-taker after Muthiah Muralitharan (800) and Shane Warne (708). He is the highest wicket-taker amongst seamers in the purest format of the game.
After his farewell Test, Anderson took up the role of bowling mentor with the national team. He will take on a call on extending his playing career after the end of this English summer.
“Once this summer is done I can sit down and have a real think if I want to play cricket in some shape or form again next year. I’m quite open at the minute to thoughts of any sort of cricket, I’m still fit enough to play and I’m not shutting myself off to anything,” Anderson stated.
“It’s hard to know if there’ll be any interest from people wanting me to play in that sort of thing so we’ll wait and see. I know it’s a while since I played it and my age will get brought up again but I really feel I’ll be good enough to play that form of cricket,” he further remarked.
