James Michael "Jimmy" Anderson (born 30 July 1982 in Burnley, Lancashire) is an international English cricketer. A pace bowler, Anderson made his international debut at the age of just 20 before experiencing a career trough. He has since been recalled to play for England, however.
As a young player, Anderson's rise was incredibly quick; he represented the England national team before he was awarded his cap at county level, coming almost straight from club cricket and Burnley's 2nd XI. His ODI debut came on December 15, 2002 against Australia at Melbourne. He showed good promise in this series - a three-team tournament also including Sri Lanka - which earned him a place in the 2003 World Cup squad. It was here that he really broke into international cricket with a match-winning spell against Pakistan, where he took four wickets in day/night game to collect the Man of the Match award. But where there are highs, there are also lows. In what proved to be England’s last match of the tournament he conceded 12 runs off the penultimate over against eventual world champions Australia and England lost a closely fought contest.
In the summer of 2003, he made his first Test cricket appearance against Zimbabwe at Lord's, and become the 17th Englishman to collect five wickets in an innings on debut. His success continued in the subsequent one day tournaments against Pakistan, (against whom he took a hat trick at the Oval), South Africa and Zimbabwe. In a matter of few months, he had become one of the biggest stars in English cricket. Continued alteration of hair styles, attractive looks, and up-to-the-minute outfits earned him comparisons with some of the most recognizable sport personalities around, including David Beckham. The frenzy was however not to last forever.
Another young man, South Africa’s captain, Graeme Smith, put Anderson and England to the sword as he made back-to-back double hundreds in the first two Tests of a series where he eventually ended up making more than 600 runs. Even though Anderson managed to pick up another five-wicket-haul at Trent Bridge, and the series was eventually drawn with England winning the final Test at The Oval by nine wickets, the damage had already been done from Anderson's point of view. His place in the England team was now far from certain. He was selected in both the one-day and Test squads for the winter tours to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, but injuries left him able to play in only 1 of the 5 Tests on that tour. He bowled well below his potential to collect figures of 0-85 in his sole appearance. The Sri Lankan conditions - typically unhelpful for fast swing bowling - didn't help.
More info for James Anderson can be found by right clicking on these links:
*Acknowledgements to Cricinfo.com, Wikipedia.com. Icc-cricket.com, Ecb.co.uk, owners of pictures and videos used.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment