When James Anderson retired from Test cricket in 2024, he did so as the proud owner of many records.

Anderson’s haul of 704 wickets is 100 more than any pace bowler. Only Sachin Tendulkar, the former India batsman, has won more than his 188 Test caps.

He is best understood not merely as a cricketing marvel but a medical marvel too. He bowled 40,037 deliveries in Test cricket, more than 6,000 more than any other seamer. For England, Anderson was not a once-in-a-generation bowler; rather, he was two generations of brilliant bowler in one.

Anderson’s original nickname – the king of swing – became a misnomer. The wobble seam, which he learnt from watching Pakistan’s Mohammad Asif in 2010, helped Anderson take 24 wickets in England’s 3-1 Ashes victory in 2010-11, their lone series victory in Australia since 1987. When England won 2-1 in India in 2012, their sole series win in India since 1985, India’s captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni called Anderson “the difference between the bowling sides”.

On pitches designed to nullify pace, no other seamer mustered more than four wickets in the series. Anderson snared 12 – bowling economically when needed, using his bouncer sagaciously, showing off his smorgasbord of cutters, and locating a full length when there was a scintilla of swing. No overseas pace bowler has taken more than his 92 wickets in Asia.

My book The Pantheon – based on six years of research, and a companion to my award-winning previous book Test Cricket: A History – entails ranking the 50 best Test cricketers to play the game since the format began in 1877.

In a series of comparative essays, I address which titans are better and why. I compare Brian Lara with Tendulkar, ask which West Indies quick bowler was the best, explore whether Jack Hobbs or Joe Root should be considered the greatest English batsman, and assess who should be considered the best Test cricketer of them all.

Eight Englishmen were included in the 50; Anderson was an agonising omission, the man whom I ranked number 51. In the rarefied company of the best Test cricketers, he is pulled down by three factors.

The first mark against Anderson is his away record. The tedious “Clouderson” jibes that he was ineffectual overseas were absurd. Yet Anderson’s overall overseas average is 29.83: perfectly respectable, but also modest compared to other pace-bowling greats. Glenn McGrath, Alan Davidson, Richard Hadlee, and West Indies trio Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose and Joel Garner all averaged under 22 abroad; Jasprit Bumrah’s average outside India is just 20.54.

Anderson is also hampered by his Ashes performances. Some great feats against Australia cannot conceal that his overall Ashes average – 35.97 – was far inferior to that of his contemporary Stuart Broad. Of the top 50 Ashes wicket-takers, Anderson’s average is two runs higher than anyone else. In the contest that defines English Test cricket more than any other, Anderson only intermittently showed his best. He particularly struggled at home to Australia, averaging 38.7.

The third mark against Anderson is his output of wickets per Test. If cricket is overburdened with statistics, wickets per match is perhaps the game’s most underrated number.

To win a Test, a team needs 20 wickets. South Africa quick Dale Steyn, long seen as Anderson’s rival for the title of the world’s best pace bowler, took 4.72 wickets per Test.

Anderson’s figure of 3.74 wickets per Test is a wicket fewer than not only Steyn, but also McGrath, Marshall and Kagiso Rabada; Hadlee and Dennis Lillee both averaged more than five wickets per Test. During Anderson’s peak, from 2010-22, he still averaged under four wickets per Test.

Even in English cricket’s most macabre moments, Anderson always had an unrivalled capacity to maintain control. At Sydney in 2018, Australia amassed a gargantuan 649 for seven declared. Yet Anderson took one for 56 from 34 overs, conceding 1.6 an over while the rest of the attack leaked 3.7 an over.

But such control was not always married with incisiveness. Anderson needed 57 balls to take each wicket in Test cricket: the equivalent of 9.3 overs, longer than most of his spells.

In consecutive Tests at Adelaide, in 2017 and 2021, Anderson took the new ball on the opening day: England’s prime wicket-taking opportunity, before conditions for batting eased. While he was parsimonious, he did not bowl full enough: the sort of length that maintains control, but is easier to leave.

“In the first innings I probably bowled too short,” Anderson wrote in 2017. “They were not going anywhere at two an over but we were not taking wickets. We should have bowled a touch fuller.”

“We were just a little bit short with the ball,” the exasperated England captain Root bemoaned in 2021. “We need to be braver, we need to get the ball up there.”

Anderson claimed only 22.41 per cent of all wickets that his team took in Tests that he played, lower than any of the specialist bowlers selected above him in “The Pantheon”.

None of these relative failings detract from Anderson’s greatness, skill or longevity. More than 3,000 men have played Test cricket; to be the 51st best is an extraordinary feat. But Anderson’s omission from the top 50 shows how brutal it is to rank the best Test players of all time.

Tim Wigmore’s ‘The Pantheon: Test Cricket’s Best 50 Players of All Time’, is published by Quercus on 5 November. The book is available in all good book stores as well as in e-book and Audio formats.