Cruel mistress cricket may not grant Jimmy Anderson a fitting finale

If you scroll down Jimmy Anderson’s Instagram page, it is hard not to notice that he is a man in fine physical fettle. Among the de rigueur golf days and regular gym sessions there are shots of Anderson on a windswept beach, running and stuff, looking healthy and flogging vitamin supplements.

It’s almost as if Big Vita want you to think that you, too – yes you in your crumb-flecked joggers, you with your lapsed gym membership, your lame excuses, your two KitKat Chunkies in front of MasterChef of an evening – you could be as lithe and lean as Jimmy if only you popped down a 2mg pill of first-pressing cod livers each day. Well, yeah right, dream on. Anderson is 39 years old and in phenomenal nick. He has spent more than half of his life as a professional sportsman, training, nutritioning, focused and committed to his goal. That 20 years of graft has seen him become England’s all-time record wicket-taker in Test cricket. You took the bins out last night, big whoop.

Anderson shared his latest photo on Monday, some fresh content for his 746,000 followers. The post shows his first squad photo for Lancashire, a cherubic, frosted-tipped youth in 2002, his boyish good looks enough to get him into any early 00s pop band.

In the second photo, his most recent Lancashire squad picture snapped a few days ago, his stubble has spread and is greying at the chin and there are more laughter lines, but, if anything the Jimmy of 2022 looks in even better condition than the Jimmy of two decades previous. “The highlights are now greys but the enthusiasm is the same. Can’t wait to get going,” he writes.

Anderson will no doubt feel a little different at the start of this county season. For the first time he will be genuinely unsure as to whether