England's James Anderson Goes Past 1,000 First-Class Wickets With Career-Best Spell

England pacer James Anderson on Monday registered his 1000th wicket in first-class cricket. The veteran pacer achieved the feat in the ongoing County Game against Kent while playing for Lancashire here at Emirates Old Trafford. Anderson dismissed Zak Crawley, Jordon Cox, Oliver Robinson, Jack Leaning, Heino Kuhn, Matt Milnes, and Harry Podmore as Kent were bowled out for 74 in the first innings. As the pacer dismissed Kuhn, he registered his 1000th scalp in first-class cricket. Anderson finished with career-best figures of 7/19 and now has 1002 wickets in all red-ball cricket.

In June, Anderson had added another feather to his already illustrious cap as he surpassed former skipper Alastair Cook to become England's most-capped Test cricketer.

Anderson achieved the feat in the second Test against New Zealand at Edgbaston. The legendary pacer has now featured in 162 matches for England one more than Cook, who played 161 games in the longest format.

Fast bowler Stuart Broad is third on the list having played 147 Tests for England while former cricketer Alec Stewart occupies the fourth spot with 133 games under his belt.

Anderson is the only fast bowler who has taken more than 600 wickets in the longest format of the game. He has 617 scalps in Test cricket.

The right-handed pacer had revealed he wasn't sure if he was good enough to play international cricket when he started off in May 2003 against Zimbabwe at the Lord's.

"I thought I wasn't good enough. I thought it was a huge step up from county cricket. I remember Nasser [Hussain] didn't have a fine leg for me and I went for quite a few runs. My first ball was a no-ball as well so there were a lot of nerves there and I did feel like this was maybe a step too far for me at that point," he said as reported by ESPNcricinfo. 

Topics mentioned in this article

James Anderson England Cricket Team Cricket