Lords England's prestigious cricket stadium. Where a 21-year-old made his Test debut on 22 May 2003 against Zimbabwe. The 41-year-old strong bowler played the last Test of his life on that field on July 12, 2024. Between 704 celebrations are behind James Anderson's cricket career.

England's great fast bowler James Anderson played the last Test match of his career on Friday. In the 188th Test match of his career, the veteran took a total of four wickets. Anderson took one wicket in the first innings while he got three wickets in the second innings. In this match, England defeated West Indies by an innings and 114 runs. After this match, England players gave guard of honor to James Anderson.

Anderson had decided to retire in April this year after ECB managing director Rob Key, coach Bandon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes told him that he was not part of their plans for the Ashes to be played in 2025-26.

Anderson took 10 wickets at an average of 33.50 in his last series played in India. He became the first fast bowler to touch the mark of 700 wickets during the last Test in Dharamsala.

James Anderson made his international debut in 2002 against Australia in Melbourne. He played 187 Tests, 194 ODIs and 19 T20 matches in a career spanning 22 years. Anderson has taken 704 wickets in Test cricket and 269 ODI and 18 wickets in T20 Internationals. He has played maximum 39-39 test matches against India and Australia. They have taken 149 wickets against India while 117 Australian batsmen have been sent to the pavilion.

“It’s been a great 20 years,” Anderson said. It was wonderful to see the audience's reaction. This has been very special. Whenever I wore this shirt, I tried to win matches for England. Emotions kept going up and down. You can't have a long career without a support network behind you. This is our family's journey as well as ours. I have said this before that winning series and Test matches is the only thing that interests me. Winning in Australia and India and contributing to those wins was the most special thing.

Why Anderson gave so much importance to test cricket? In his words, "Test cricket tests a cricketer's ability and reveals his true character." It is clear from his words that he had already decided to test himself till the last day of his international cricket career. He last played white ball cricket for the country in 2015.