England legend James Anderson announces retirement from Test cricket

London: James Anderson has announced he will be retiring from international cricket after England’s first Test against the West Indies in July.

Anderson, known as Jimmy, is England’s highest Test wicket-taker of all-time, having taken exactly 700, one of only three players to reach the mark, and the only seam bowler to do so.

“It’s been an incredible 20 years representing my country, playing the game I’ve loved since I was a kid”, he said in a statement on Instagram.

“I’m going to miss walking out for England so much. But I know the time is right to step aside and let others realise their dreams just like I got to, because there is no greater feeling.”

Anderson, 41, thanked “everyone who has supported me over the years”.

“It’s always meant a lot, even if my face often doesn’t show it,” he added.

Anderson took his 700th in his most recent outing against India in Dharamsala in March.

He has decided to call time on his Test career after talks with England head coach Brendon McCullum, who wants to modify his side’s seam attack and build towards the future with one eye on the 2025-26 Ashes.

The Lancashire bowler, who has played an English record 187 Test matches, after making his debut in 2003, has taken his wickets at an average of under 27 each.

In all, he has bowled almost 40,000 deliveries, an astonishing figure for a Test quick bowler, but, perhaps inevitably, his figures have slipped and in the last 12 months, he has taken only 15 wickets in eight Tests at an average of 51 each.

He needs nine more wickets to move above Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne’s 708 dismissals and become the second-highest Test wicket-taker of all time, behind another spinner, Sri Lanka’s, Muttiah Muralitharan, who has 800.

Often described as the best swing bowler in the history of the sport, he has played in four Ashes-winning teams as well as in the England squad that won the 2010 T-20 World Cup and the England side that reached the 2013 Champions Trophy final.

Across all international formats, including T-20s and One-Day Internationals (ODIs), he has taken 987 wickets in 400 matches.

His 269 ODI wickets is an English record. He played in 194 ODIs and 19 T20s before his international white-ball career ended in 2015.

That was the year he overtook Sir Ian Botham’s 383 dismissals to become England’s record Test wicket-taker and three years later, he overhauled Glenn McGrath’s total of 563 Test wickets to become the most prolific fast bowler of all time.