Reflections on My Forced Retirement through the Lens of Goodfellas: A Conversation with James Anderson

New Delhi: Retired England fast bowler James Anderson recently shared a memorable experience from his playing days in his book "Finding the Edge." He vividly described a tense meeting at a dimly lit Manchester bar with red-ball coach Brendon McCullum and men's cricket Managing Director Rob Key, likening it to a scene from the movie "Goodfellas" where Joe Pesci's character Tommy DeVito is in a heated discussion. In the book, Anderson opened up about his mixed emotions surrounding his forced retirement and expressed his strong desire to continue playing beyond the restrictions imposed by the England cricket authorities.

“As I walk towards them, it hits me cold. This isn’t a team appraisal, is it?” Anderson wrote in one of the excerpts from the book. “With each footstep toward the far side of the bar, each of their distinct silhouettes coming into view, the tram journey just gone is suddenly like a blissful past life, the outdoor sun sucked into a horizonless neon-red darkness.

“My brain is doing the maths and my heart is sinking as I go to shake their hands. I feel like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, ushered into a room under the impression that I’m going to get made, only to be shot. You f******.

“They’re going to tell me something I don’t want to be told, aren’t they? Something I’ve been swerving, darting, shapeshifting, bowling through my whole life,” Anderson added.

This isn’t the first instance where Anderson, who concluded his career with 704 wickets in 188 matches for England, received such a message regarding his retirement. The 42-year-old expressed appreciation for the thorough communication he had with both Rob Key and Brendon McCullum, who took the time to explain their decision-making process. He also reflected on the abrupt nature of his exclusion from the West Indies series two years prior, which he described as merely a 45-second phone call from Andrew Strauss.

“He just said on the phone, incredibly bluntly and swiftly, ‘There’s no easy way to say this, but we’re going in a different direction. We’re giving younger players a go.’ That was it. No further information. End of call,” Anderson mentioned while saying that he chose not to say at that moment as his children were in the car and informed the same to Stuart Broad, his partner-in-crime for years for England while learning that he too had been dropped.

Anderson concluded his career as the third-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket, falling short of Shane Warne’s record by just five wickets.