ECB welcomes James Anderson to the 500-wicket club, reveal his special relationship with Tendulkar

English seamer James Anderson is the latest bowler to enter the 500-wicket club. On Saturday, Anderson took his career-best figures of 7/42 to lead England to an emphatic 9-wicket victory over West Indies in the third and deciding Test at Lord’s. Anderson became the fifth bowler to reach the 500-wicket mark, after Muttiah Muralitharan (800), Shane Warne (708), Anil Kumble (619), McGrath (563) and Courtney Walsh (519).

Heralded as one of the greatest bowlers of all time, the English pacer is likely to become the most successful pacer in the history of the sport if he continues to play first-class cricket for another couple of years. Anderson, 35, can overtake Aussie great Glenn McGrath’s total of 563 wickets – which is the most number of scalps a pacer has ever registered.

Following the feat, the England Cricket took to Twitter to congratulate the bowler. ECB posted a video on their official Twitter handle and captioned it saying, “Oh Jimmy Jimmy! Here’s all you need to know about @jimmy9’s 500 Test wickets. #Jimmy500”

Here is the video of Anderson

The congratulatory video also revealed that Anderson had a special relationship with Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar. Anderson possesses one piece that McGrath would certainly love to own, the record of dismissing the Indian legend the most times in Test cricket. Anderson has dismissed Tendulkar nine times in 14 Tests. This one aspect itself would make him a favourite bowler for any team. He also holds the distinction of being the most successful bowler against three of the top five runs getters in Test.

Apart from Tendulkar, the lethal pacer has also managed to give a tough time to other batting greats like Jaques Kallis and Kumar Sangakkara. He has made Kallis his victim seven times in 15 Tests, while he scalped Sangakkara seven times in eight Tests.