James Anderson reckons there won’t ever be another fast bowler to follow in his and Stuart Broad’s footsteps.
Les Jackson was the last 40-year-old seamer to take a Test wicket for England in 1961, but this week he will open the bowling in a Test match as a 40-year-old still at the pinnacle of the game, setting the standards that others try to match.
It will be his 173rd Test, and coming fully six weeks after his last match, it will hurt, because Test matches do, especially for fast bowlers. He can expect to bowl around forty overs at Lord’s, a significant increase on the four overs per game for a T20. And his pro rata pay packet will be somewhat short of a top bracket franchise bowler too, but still, there is nowhere he’d rather be.
