While Nasser Hussain only briefly had James Anderson under his wing as an England captain, the youngster from Burnley certainly caught his eye in that short time.

England’s most prolific wicket-taker made his ODI debut on the 2002/03 tour of Australia with just a handful of Lancashire first XI appearances under his belt, but he made a strong enough impression to land a spot in England’s squad for the 50-over World Cup a few months later.

Speaking about Anderson’s arrival into the England set-up during that tour, Hussain, just months away from giving up the England captaincy, told Sky Sports: “Someone said there’s this lad at Lancashire, Jimmy Anderson, and he’s played a couple of games for Burnley, he’s in the Lancashire second team and he’s played a few first-class games and I said, ‘Get him over, he can’t be any worse than what we’ve got’.

“And I’ll tell you now, to this day, when I first saw him, you just knew he was a special talent. That sort of natural bowler that England just do not produce. It’s almost like those videos you see on Twitter of young Pakistan bowlers running in on a dirt track and bowling. Jimmy Anderson was the most naturally gifted bowler I had seen. He was outstanding, different league.”

There were difficulties too, although Hussain revisited the moment he knew Anderson “was going to be alright”,  remembering when he went to speak to Anderson after a World Cup defeat to Australia in which the bowler’s final over went for 12 runs.

“Jimmy was the hardest bloke I ever had to captain,” Hussain said. “I only had him for a short period, and people took that wrong way, as if he was a troublemaker, as if he wouldn’t listen or whatever. He would listen.

[breakout id=”0″][/breakout]

“He used to soak everything up, but when he used to stand at the end of his run and I used to talk to him, he would completely and utterly blank me. Jimmy just used to blank me as if to say, ‘Give me the ball, I know exactly what I’m doing’. And after that PE [Port Elizabeth] game I went to see him, he was playing pool with Ian Blackwell and I thought, ‘I better go see this young lad, I made him bowl the last over and he’s been hit into the ocean’, and I said, ’Jimmy, I’m sorry about that. I probably hung you out to dry there a little bit’. He just looked at me, potted the black, walked off and had absolutely no interest in me at all.

“My expectation of him grew there, actually, because I knew this was a lad that was going to be alright. He wasn’t going to be too affected by setbacks.”