Big picture: Anderson enters the end-game
It’s been an emotional week already for the grand old men of British sport. At Wimbledon on Thursday, Andy Murray unleashed the waterworks as he bade farewell to Centre Court, with a final acceptance that his flesh was now too weak to sustain his indomitable spirit.
By contrast, that same afternoon at Saint Vulbas, and then at Silverstone three days after that, Mark Cavendish and Lewis Hamilton proved what a champion’s mindset can still achieve when the fates finally decree that you have suffered purgatory for long enough.
And now, we roll through to Lord’s on Wednesday, where another immoveable constant of the British sporting summer will begin his own five-day farewell. As with each of the three men mentioned above, James Anderson has never known when to quit, and were it not for the march of time, he’d have no reason to do so. “I’ve not really got a choice, have I?” he demurred, when asked if he was at peace with the decision to pension…
