James Anderson and Stuart Broad have both been left out of England’s Test squad to tour the West Indies next month.
Anderson, 39, and 35-year-old Broad are among only seven bowlers ever to take more than 500 Test wickets and here, we look at their career records.
500 club
Anderson is the record Test wicket-taker among seamers with 640 from his 169 Tests, with only Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan’s remarkable 800 and Shane Warne’s 708 for Australia ahead of him.
India’s Anil Kumble follows on 619 while Warne’s long-time team-mate Glenn McGrath is the nearest seamer behind Anderson with 563. Broad has 537 wickets in 152 Tests, with West Indian Courtney Walsh completing the list on 519.
McGrath has the best average of the septet with 21.64, edging out Muralitharan’s 22.73, with Anderson’s 26.58 and Broad’s 27.81 ranking fifth and sixth ahead of Kumble.
Anderson has 31 five-wicket hauls, the best of the seamers in that group but behind all three spinners, with Muralitharan once more away in the distance with a scarcely-believable 67 – Warne ranks second among all Test bowlers with 37. Broad has 19, including 12 instances of taking six or more.
Ageless Anderson
While Anderson will turn 40 this summer, one of the more remarkable aspects of his Test career is the way he has improved in later years.
Since the start of 2014, when he was already 31 with the wear and tear of 91 Tests as a new-ball paceman in his legs, he has played another 78 games and taken an astonishing 300 wickets at 22.02.
Only 36 bowlers including Anderson have 300 wickets in their full Test career and of those, only four have an average lower than his in that phase – West Indies greats Malcolm Marshall at 20.94 and Curtly Ambrose at 20.99, Fred Trueman with 21.57, and McGrath.
Broad the game-changer
Broad’s innings-wrecking bursts have written him into English cricketing lore, most famously the eight for 15 at Trent Bridge which clinched the 2015 Ashes.
He has twice taken seven-wicket hauls at Lord’s, against the West Indies in 2012 and New Zealand the following year, and is the only England bowler with two Test hat-tricks to his name. The first came against India in 2011 as part of figures of six for 46, with the second against Sri Lanka in 2014.
He has also enjoyed success against the opposition’s star batters, most famously Australia opener David Warner.
He dominated the left-hander in England’s 2019 Ashes win and has taken his wicket 14 times in all, while he has dismissed former Australia captain Michael Clarke 11 times and New Zealand’s Ross Taylor and South Africa star AB de Villiers 10 apiece.
Steve Smith is another Australian mainstay to struggle with Broad, with nine dismissals. Broad has also dismissed Ashes rivals Chris Rogers and Shane Watson, De Villiers’ team-mate Hashim Amla and Kiwi Tom Latham eight times each.
Lord’s of all they survey
Anderson is one of only three bowlers to take over 100 Test wickets at a single venue, capturing 110 at Lord’s.
Muralitharan achieved the feat at three different grounds – 166 at Colombo’s SSC, 117 in Kandy and 111 at Galle, where fellow Sri Lanka spinner Rangana Herath took 102.
Broad will hope to play on for the chance to join that list, needing just five more wickets at HQ to complete a century of his own.
Anderson’s record at Trent Bridge may be even more impressive than at HQ, with 68 wickets at a stunning average of 19.44 across 11 Tests. Nottinghamshire’s Broad has 41 at 23.80 on his home venue, narrowly behind his 46 at Headingley but at a lower average.
