Longest Test careers

I was wondering where Jimmy Anderson stood in this ranking, given it’s now more than 19 years since his initially inauspicious debut against Zimbabwe which turned into the now customary 5-for. As I’ve highlighted before, he played that match alongside the now 59-year-old Alec Stewart.

Of course there were some ridiculously long careers in the very old days, Wilfred Rhodes’ 30 year span will obviously never be matched… 17 players in total have exceeded two decades. But the only players whose careers intersected the 21st century who are above Anderson are Herath (by a matter of days now), Chanderpaul and Tendulkar. And none of those obviously were seam bowlers!

I remember once discussing the last active players from the 20th century (of which Herath must have been the final one, having debuted in 1999). I guess the equivalent now is the “Noughtie Boys”, those who debuted before 2010… Broad and Southee join Jimmy in this match as part of that club. Others I can come up with are Ishant (maybe discarded now), Roach, Shakib, Mathews and Mushfiqur. Maybe there’s some less obvious ones with more sporadic appearances.

It’s possible to construct a chain of 8 players spanning the entire history of Test cricket (without the requirement for them to have actually played against/alongside the next one). I don’t think 7 is possible.

Anderson 2003-22
S Waugh 1985-2004
Amarnath 1969-88
Close 1949-76
Headley 1930 (11 Jan)-54
Rhodes 1899 (1 Jun)-1930 (12 April)
Grace 1880-1899 (3 Jun) (plenty of others presumably possible for this link)
Blackham 1877-1894