Who is the greatest fast bowler ever? Answers are likely to range from Wasim Akram to Malcolm Marshall to Sir Richard Hadlee or even a Glenn McGrath. Jimmy Anderson would perhaps be way down the list on that vote. But if greatness is about longevity at the top, there is little to debate Anderson’s candidature.
“Fast bowlers aren’t meant to last as long as Anderson did, but his defying the script was a result of constant reinvention even as the game around him transformed. Swing, in his hands, was an art form; his ability to move the ball both ways with imperceptible precision made him a bowler of rare genius. Most quicks lose their venom with age. But Anderson only became deadlier, swapping raw pace for precision, deception, and a mastery of conditions that made him as lethal at 38 as he was at 25.”
Anderson ended his career as the highest wicket taking fast bowler in tests, almost a hundred more than anyone else. This is a review of his autobiography (Finding the Edge) with help from Felix White:
“In the same way cricket oscillates between euphoria and despair, Anderson’s story is as much about success as the struggles that defined him—the frustration of changing his game to please management, the silent grief of a miscarriage, selection insecurities, crushing defeats, dressing-room politics, and the relentless loop of self-doubt— and make him all the more human.
… It’s the story of a man constantly searching for the perfect delivery, the perfect spell—knowing he may never find it, yet never ceasing to try. “I was always searching for that feeling, that perfection. As good as I got, I never reached it. There was always something else to find.” It’s a fitting sentiment for a cricketer whose pursuit of perfection, ironically, made him one of the game’s most complete bowlers.”
But there’s another reason to pick up the book beyond Anderson’s conquests.
“There’s a certain elegance to cricket writing when done well, matching, if not exceeding, the beauty of the game itself. Think Shehan Karunatilaka’s Chinaman, a fictional biography of a cricket journalist in search of an elusive chinaman bowler or Beyond a Boundary by C L R James, tying cricket to the real-world, to racial and class divisions along with the various interconnections the sport carries with itself. Much like Anderson’s best deliveries, Finding the Edge lands perfectly—unforced, sharp, precise.
…Felix White’s fingerprints are all over this book, with his storytelling instincts bringing a fluidity and depth to the book that make it as much a literary work as a sporting chronicle. Just as he does in “Tailenders” (a podcast including Greg James alongside Jimmy and Felix), he brings a certain warmth and wit along with an unguarded glimpse into Anderson the person, not just the cricketer. There’s no airbrushed heroism here—simply a deeply personal story told clearly and without any pretence.”
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