Arthur Crabtree wrote:On the other hand... he hardly plays. Touring itself is hard emotionally and physically. The training may well be hard, but that should make him better able to handle the work. But he is a single format player and hardly plays fc cricket. So that should keep the tank fuller than it might be. I don't think he wanted to give up the other formats, but it must have helped him to continue and also escape the wear and tear that weakens many pace bowlers.
As a great comparison, the last great fast bowler to turn out for Lancashire for the majority of his career was Wasim Akram. Jimmy is about one season away from equaling the amount of first class games Wasim played, despite Wasim being a 100 test plus Pakistan player, and him playing 11 full seasons of county cricket. Wasim holds the record for the most ODIs for a specialist front line bowler...... the extra 200 odd ODIs in terms of balls bowled is completely offset by Anderson's bigger test haul.... they have both bowled pretty identical amounts of international and first class balls.
This pretty much rings true with everyone you could look into, save for Courtney Walsh who seemed to bowl an insane amount in FC cricket and is miles ahead, and Donald, who isnt a great example because he spent 7 years of his career not being able to play at the top level, and he therefore took contracts to play everywhere to make the money. After those two, there is a glut around the 50,000 mark that Anderson is a part of.... Vaas, McGrath, Pollock, Wasim. With all of them you find the aforementioned names played 300-350 ODIs and 100 odd tests, but without getting the calculator out to check 100%, they all pretty much topped around the 40,000 and are level with Anderson in terms of International balls bowled. To use Mcgrath as an example, he played 75 extra ODIs than Anderson, but that only equates to about 12 extra tests when factoring how much each bowled on average. Go the other way, and playing 25 tests = 150..... so Anderson could have ended his test career 2 years ago continuing to play ODI cricket, and for what hes bowled, he'd retire in total balls somewhere near Akram at the top of the ODI all time list, and still be in the top 5 of all time test bowlers.
Far from not playing much, he's pretty much blasted every single person in his direct era for balls sent down at the top level.... and he's now in a club which suggests a glut of players who make the 40,000 mark, then retire. The tank must be pretty empty