Birmingham Phoenix captain Moeen Ali has revealed that he would have considered James Anderson as an injury-replacement for this season's Hundred given the swing that new ball bowlers have been getting in the competition.
Birmingham Phoenix finished second on the league table of the 2024 Men's Hundred, registering six wins out of eight and qualifying for the Eliminator. Tim Southee was their leading wicket-taker across the league stage taking 14 wickets, only Sam Curran and Adam Zampa have more in this edition.
Phoenix also had the services of Sean Abbott and Adam Milne, whose 10 and nine wickets respectively meant the Birmingham-based side were the only one in the men's competition with three seamers in the top ten wicket-takers.
The seam-bowler's major contribution to the side's success prompted Moeen and the Phoenix management to consider further seam options and contingency plans should one of their bowlers pick up an injury. Batting has been tough in this edition of the competition, while the ball has swung prodigiously for all sides.
"It's why we got Tim Southee," Moeen said today (August 16) of the swinging ball. "Last year we had Woakesy [Chris Woakes] and these guys, they bowled outstandingly well.
"You want that Test bowler, who can hit a length, swing the ball. If we had an injury, I would honestly have tried to call up Jimmy Anderson, because he would have been awesome. They've been swinging it every game. If we had an injury, I have been talking about it.
"I would've tried to get Jimmy to play. Other teams would do the same. He would be amazing in this format, the way the balls are swinging. Who is better than him, when it's swinging? We had Woody to cover him, but if one of our bowlers went down...! I'm not sure if it's still possible. On Woody [Mark Wood, he is a great guy but his experience...you can't beat it. He brings a lot to the team."
Anderson retired from Test match cricket last summer but has not yet announced his retirement from all forms of cricket. His last T20 match, however was a decade ago when he stepped out for Lancashire in the 2014 T20 Blast final against Warwickshire.
Despite Anderson's long absence from professional white-ball cricket, last week the 42-year-old revealed that he was opening to carrying on his career in the shorter formats.
"There's definitely a bit of intrigue with the shorter formats because I've not played any franchise stuff before," said Anderson, speaking at the launch of a new ECB campaign. "Watching The Hundred this year, seeing the ball swing around, it makes me feel like I could do a job there.
"I know it's a while since I played it and my age will get brought up again but I really feel I'll be good enough to play that form of cricket."
Anderson played 19 T20Is in his career and took 18 wickets. He has so far played 44 T20s and taken 41 wickets.
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