As Kraigg Brathwaite and his West Indies players lined up to give Jimmy Anderson a guard of honour at Lord’s last week, they could have been forgiven for harbouring the odd envious thought. The respect out in the middle was genuine, no question, but one or two might have pondered the disparity of resource and opportunity on display.
Anderson was a freak, of course, that hunger undimmed to the point of having to be stood down by the end. But underpinning his remarkable career was the broader security of England’s central contract system – deals worth about £500,000 a year, around a third less than their peak in 2016 when white‑ball deals were carved out – and a canvas of 188 Tests in 21 years on which to paint those 704 glorious brush strokes.
