James Anderson: England paceman on being a top bowler

"For me, hitting the guy on the pad - the noise it makes - knowing it's hitting middle stump halfway up and turning round, knowing the umpire is going to put his finger up, is just the best feeling ever."

The thrill rush that follows a wicket-taking delivery has become a familiar sensation to England's James Anderson.

In the last two months, the fast bowler has ed Sir Ian Botham, Bob Willis and Fred Trueman in England's 300 Test wicket club and overtaken Darren Gough as the country's leading wicket-taker in one-day internationals.

The feats reflect Anderson's status as one of the best fast bowlers in the sport, a man capable of removing high-class batsmen with a range of devilish deliveries that move in the air or off the seam.

But Anderson's route to the top has not been without mishap. After making his England debut at the age of 20 in 2002, injury and inconsistency blighted his early years before he gradually developed a temperament and technique that could make him stand out.

In a revealing interview with BBC Sport's Mark Chapman, Anderson offers a detailed insight into what it takes to be a world-class fast bowler.

Citing his key influences and disclosing some of his methods, the Lancashire paceman - who will spearhead England's attack in the Ashes series - relives his journey to the highest echelons of his sport.

Anderson's greatest skill is his ability to swing the ball both ways. His capacity to disguise which way it is going to move until the last moment is crucial to inducing batsmen into false shots.

A pair of deliveries to New Zealand's Dean Brownlie on the final day of the Lord's Test in May encapsulated this singular talent.

Both pitched just outside off stump, but the first swung in and fizzed past the inside edge. The second, an immaculate outswinger, found the outside of Brownlie's bat and he was caught at slip.

Like many more celebrated performers before him, Brownlie had been outfoxed by a supreme exponent of the art of swing bowling.

But, as Anderson reveals to Chapman, his current abilities are the product of more than a decade of toil.

"When I first got picked for Lancashire I couldn't swing the ball, so [coach] Mike Watkinson took me aside and taught me how to do it: the grip and the seam position," reveals Anderson.

"He said imagine the feel of it coming out of your hand almost like an off-spinner, your arm coming over almost like a round-arm, or low-arm. That really worked for me because I'm a feel kind of bowler.

"From there I tried to develop an inswinger. That took me years and years to actually develop the confidence to bowl it in a game, and then another couple of years to actually get it straight.

"Over the last few years, if I bowl a good ball I just try to think about everything I did during that ball, how it came out of my fingers, how it felt and just try to recreate that over and over again."

Like all master craftsmen, Anderson owes much of his success to the hours he puts in developing his skills away from the workplace.

To this end, he is assisted by the England backroom staff, who compile reams of data and footage of opposing players.

"I before the Ashes in Australia in 2010-11, I sat down with bowling coach David Saker and we discussed having a delivery for Australian conditions that would keep me in the game when the ball wasn't swinging," Anderson recalls.

"We were playing Pakistan at the time and Mohammad Asif had a ball that wobbled a bit, hit the seam and moved both ways.

"Our batsmen were saying how difficult it was to face, so we got footage of it and tried to figure out how he did it.

"I then went into the nets during the series to see how best I could do it. I found something that worked for me, managed to get it on a good length and the guys in the nets were saying they thought it was a really good ball. I took that to Australia and it worked really well for me."

As well as studying rival bowlers, Anderson prides himself on an encyclopedic knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of opposition batsmen.

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