Mitchell Johnson: Retiring England great Jimmy Anderson did it all in extraordinary career

Oh Jimmy Jimmy, Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Anderson!

I can still hear it now. And when you heard the Barmy Army in full voice with that one during the Ashes you knew Jimmy Anderson was on song.

As the almost 42-year-old’s career comes to an end, he will be remembered as England’s best fast bowler and one of the best in world cricket.

With his farewell Test match against the West Indies at Lord’s looming this week, Anderson is not slowing down before he hits the finish line either.

He warmed up with 7/35 for Lancashire against Nottinghamshire this week while playing alongside our own Nathan Lyon.

It was funny seeing these two as teammates as the history has always been intense but it was great to see the long-time Ashes rivals playing together and even having a bit a fun doing it. “It feels a little bit sick, me saying ‘Come on, Jimmy’ and him saying, ‘Nice, Garry’,” Lyon said.

Looking at Anderson’s career, the stats are hard to get your head around – 700 Test wickets and 187 Test matches.

That’s just an insane amount of cricket for a fast bowler. He’s been clever about it and been able to adapt.

Early in his career he came into the game bowling 145kmh rockets and had a few injuries. With the idea of his own longevity in mind (surely even he wasn’t thinking 188 Tests, 194 one-dayers and nearly 300 first-class games) he backed down in pace and bowled at between 130-140kmh for most of his career.

Anderson had an arsenal of tricks most quicks could only dream of and the control to take advantage of all of them. He was so consistent because he was able to read the game situation and adapt to the conditions.

Anderson swung the ball both ways, conventional and reverse, had multiple variations of off and leg-cutters and a host of seam positions.

For much of his career he had a great partner-in-crime in Stuart Broad, who had a fairytale farewell last English summer during the Ashes.

While Anderson’s Test output has declined over the past couple of years and he probably went on a bit too long, it has mostly worked out for England. Perhaps they didn’t want to lose he and Broad in one hit.

We had plenty of battles out in the middle and Jimmy was never far from the action when it came to Ashes flashpoints.

He was up for the challenge most of the time, apart from during the 2013/14 Ashes series when he was facing up to a few of my short balls at the Gabba in the first Test.

Michael Clarke unleashed his famous sledge – “get ready for a broken f….. arm” with a giggling George Bailey crouching next to Jimmy at short leg.

In the 2010/11 Ashes series at the WACA Ground, Anderson was walking past me at the non-strikers end and I decided to wind him up while I was batting. I said clear enough that it was picked up by the stump mics, “Why are you chirping now mate, not getting wickets?”

Well that backfired, as the very next ball he ran in and delivered a perfect yorker to Ryan Harris that bowled him.

Jimmy turned to me and put his arms out, holding his ears as if to say, ‘I can’t hear you now’. I deserved that. But I still blame Rhino to this day for missing a half volley!

A few years later I was able to take Anderson’s wicket at the WACA Ground to end the Test match and win the series in 2013/14.

Anderson finishes his career as the greatest Test wicket taker of all time among fast bowlers and behind only Muthiah Muralidaran (800 wickets) and Shane Warne (708).

He leads a list of other pace-bowling legends including Broad (604), Glenn McGrath (563), Courtney Walsh (519), Dale Steyn (439), Kapil Dev (434) and Richard Hadlee (431).

If you want to have a conversation, you could throw in Dennis Lillee, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Curtly Ambrose, Malcolm Marshall, Allan Donald and plenty of others.

We can all argue endlessly about who are the greatest fast bowlers or bowlers in general. We all have our own opinions and none of them are wrong.

We can debate where Anderson took his wickets (434 at home, 244 away, 22 neutral) and talk about how he mastered the Dukes ball but wasn’t usually as effective with the Kookaburra (he averages 24.5 in England and 34.0 in Australia).

What can’t be denied are the overall numbers Anderson has put on the board and his extraordinary skill, durability and longevity which has helped to set him apart.

The more you dig the more insane it becomes - 39,877 balls bowled. And that’s just in Test cricket! He bowled 58,875 balls in first-class cricket and other 9584 balls in one-day internationals.

Think of the number of balls in every net session across an international career that spanned more than two decades since making his ODI debut at 20 and Test debut at 21.

I hope he has a good team of physios for his retirement. It’s enough to make me sore just thinking about it.