Jimmy Anderson says he felt ‘sadness and shock’ after Lancashire dismissal and is weighing his future
Jimmy Anderson told the BBC’s Tailenders podcast on 30 October 2026 that he felt “sadness and shock” after being informed his Lancashire contract would not be renewed and that he is considering whether his future involves playing cricket or “something different”. He spoke for the first time since learning of his surprise dismissal and said the decision led him to question whether there was “something fundamentally wrong with me as a person”.
Anderson, England’s leading wicket-taker, had been at Lancashire for 26 years since making his debut at the turn of the century and was released despite taking 50 wickets, while captaining the side, at an average of 17 amid their struggles in Division Two of the County Championship this year. England also chose to drop Anderson in similar circumstances in 2024 as they sought to build a fresh attack for the 2025-26 Ashes in Australia. The 44-year-old described the end of his time at the club he supported as a child as painful but said he was beginning to consider new possibilities.
Describing the meeting in which he was told the club would move on without him, Anderson said: “I went in for what I thought was a conversation about how the team moves forward.” He added: “It wasn’t a great year for the team. Being captain I thought it was chat about that. A couple of minutes in I realised it wasn’t a conversation. I was being told they thought the best way for the team to move forward was without me.” He said the exchange was brief and left him “quite shocked.”
Anderson recounted how he and Lancashire’s head coach had spent the season asking whether they could do more to help the team. “All of the way through the season myself and the head coach were like: ‘Is it something we are doing? Could we be doing more to help the team?’” He added: “I finished the season thinking: ‘Was it something I did? Was I doing something wrong?’ – and then I get this news – now I am thinking that even more.” He said: “I’m thinking: ‘This is happening again – is there something fundamentally wrong with me as a person?’ Your head just races.”
On his personal plans, Anderson said he had hoped to finish his career with Lancashire. “I wanted to see my career out with Lancs. I don’t know if my career is done, we will have to wait and see, but it would be nice at some point if someone would let me retire,” he said. He also addressed his outlook beyond the immediate reaction, saying: “I’m starting to get excited about the future, whether it’s something different or playing cricket again. It’s exciting. There are exciting challenges ahead. I have to attack it like that and not dwell too much on how or why it finished at Lancs.”
Anderson concluded by reaffirming his attachment to the county: “I am sad the way it ended with the club I supported as a kid but now I have thought about it I am quite excited for the future. I am always going to support Lancashire.” He said he does not yet know whether his playing career is over and that “we will have to wait and see.”