James Anderson opens up on enforced retirement: ‘It was like Goodfellas’

James Anderson has recalled the moment he was told his Test career was over in a Manchester hotel as the record-breaking England fast bowler opens up on his retirement in a forthcoming book.

Anderson’s time in international cricket was brought to an end after the first Test of the summer against the West Indies, with captain Ben Stokes, coach Brendon McCullum and men’s cricket managing director Rob Key electing to blood a new set of seamers and move on from their all-time leading wicket-taker.

The 42-year-old Lancashire bowler finished with 704 wickets in Test cricket, more than any other fast bowler, and thought he had been called in for a routine appraisal after the tour of India in April this year.

But walking in to Dakota Hotel to meet Stokes, McCullum and Key, Anderson soon realised that the end was near, bringing to mind a scene in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 gangster film.

“As I walk towards them, it hits me cold. This isn’t a team appraisal, is it?” Anderson writes in his forthcoming book, Finding The Edge, serialised in The Sunday Times. “With each footstep towards the far side of the bar, each of their distinct silhouettes coming into view, the tram journey just gone is suddenly like a blissful past life, the outdoor sun sucked into a horizonless neon-red darkness.

“My brain is doing the maths and my heart is sinking as I go to shake their hands. I feel like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, ushered into a room under the impression that I’m going to get made, only to be shot. You f------. They’re going to tell me something I don’t want to be told, aren’t they? Something I’ve been swerving, darting, shapeshifting, bowling through for my whole life.”

Anderson was given the option of concluding his Test career before the summer or enjoying a swansong against the West Indies at the Home of Cricket after McCullum, Key and Stokes decided that he would be unable to play through to next winter’s Ashes series. He has since taking up a role as England’s bowling coach.

The veteran had been left out once before in early 2022 by then interim director of cricket Andrew Strauss, who omitted Anderson and long-time opening partner Stuart Broad from a squad to tour the West Indies.

“The last time England had tried to do this, it was a 45-second phone call from Andrew Strauss before the West Indies tour in early 2022,” Anderson remembers. “He had just said on the phone, incredibly bluntly and swiftly, “There’s no easy way to say this, but we’re going in a different direction. We’re giving younger players a go.” That was it. No further information. End of call.

“I didn’t want to argue because my kids were in the car. I didn’t mention it to them, I just drove them home, phoned Stuart Broad, who had been dropped too it turned out, and went to the gym. We took our combined 1,177 wickets and raged ourselves fitter. They called it a ‘red ball reset’. It turned out the red ball reset needed resetting itself quite quickly and three months later we were back in. Strauss and I have never spoken about it since. I guess you’d rather be stabbed in the front than the back.”