England pacer James Anderson reached the iconic milestone of 1,000 wickets in First-class cricket after he picked up a five-wicket haul inside the first hour of play in the ongoing County Championship fixture against Kent.
The Lancashire bowler was only five wickets away from the landmark before the contest and reached there with the wicket of Heino Kuhn.
Lancashire made a mess of the Kent batting order at Old Trafford and Anderson reached the milestone bowling from the end named after himself. Before this game, Anderson had 995 wickets to his name from 261 First-class games at an astounding average of 24.85 runs per wicket and a 52.30 strike rate.
With this, his 51st first-class five-wicket haul, Anderson became only the 14th player and fifth fast bowler to reach the 1000 wicket landmark in this century. Prior to him, other fast bowlers such as Andy Caddick (in 2005), Martin Bicknell (in 2004), Devon Malcolm (in 2002) and Wasim Akram (in 2001) have achieved this feat. Anderson, however, is the only fast bowler to take 1000 first-class wickets after debuting in the 21st century.
Anderson has been a champion bowler and is now the leading wicket-taker among pacers at the international level. He sits comfortably at the top with 617 Test wickets at an average of 26.67 runs per wicket.
The 38-year-old made his first-class debut in the year 2002 and Test debut in the following year against Zimbabwe at Lord’s.
He has also become the most-capped player from England in the just-concluded Test series against New Zealand by surpassing former skipper Alastair Cook.