James Anderson is set to play his 188th and final Test for England, but what made his career so special?
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00:00I can't believe any team will ever take 700 test wickets again or play this number of
00:06games.
00:07It's a miracle what we've seen, and you get a chance to see him one more time.
00:12He was quick at the time.
00:14He was exciting, but he was very young.
00:16It was quite un-English to sort of pluck someone from county cricket after a handful of games
00:21and put them in the international side, but you could see why because the talent was irrepressible.
00:29But no way did I think that we'd be talking for years about a career that was ongoing
00:37and that had metamorphosised from this sort of talented, young, quick swing bowler to
00:44an artist and one who had achieved so much for English cricket.
00:53I think the thing that I like most is his hunger, his love for the game.
00:58I've compared him before to Andy Murray.
01:00Andy Murray's had this fantastic career, really, and now he's losing a fair bit, and he doesn't
01:07mind that because he's so in love with the sport, so in love with the competition, and
01:12has so much belief in himself that he keeps pushing himself to do it again.
01:16These champions like Murray and Anson, they don't think like that.
01:19They believe in themselves hugely, and they love it.
01:23He's a great competitor because he's relatively soft-spoken and because his skills are more
01:27subtle.
01:28It doesn't always come across, but wow, what a heart, amazing.
01:37James Anderson's been at the centre of almost everything good that's happened in English
01:40cricket in the last 20 years.
01:43He was part of that, a key part of the side that won in Australia after all those years
01:48in 10-11.
01:49MS Dhoni said he was the difference between the sides in the 2012 tour of India when England
01:54won.
01:55He was part of the side that went for number one in the world.
01:57It would be hard to exaggerate how important he's been to English Test cricket over the
02:02last 20 years, absolutely immense.
02:09Seven hundred wickets, there'll be some great ones, and Brian Norris says the only unplayable
02:13ball he ever received in his career was from James Anderson.
02:17The best I think I saw him goal, he didn't get the figures to show for it, might have
02:21been in Kolkata in 2012, I think he took a fourth one, but on a surface that seniors
02:27didn't have any right to be taking wickets, and England won in India.
02:30As time goes on, it seems like more of a miracle that, and probably the 10-11 series, winning
02:37in Australia, seeing the Australia supporters blood out of the ground, that was a pretty
02:44magical start.
02:48Jimi Anderson's record is indisputably great.
02:53The fact is that he has won in Australia and India, he has taken a side to number one in
02:57the world, he has taken a world record, a seamus, in Test cricket, and he has played
03:02for over 20 years.
03:05If you don't think that's great, you really need to be taking a bit of a look at yourself,
03:09you are the most churlish of people, and there is no fast bowler who's ever played Test cricket
03:14and who is going to tell you anything other than that James Anderson has been a great bowler.
03:21I think everyone who loves cricket, loves English cricket, loves the skill of fast bowling,
03:26revel in it one more time, because genuinely I think it will be like WG Grace, I think
03:30people will be talking about it for 150 years.