'I never wanted to play cricket because it would make me good money'

Jimmy Anderson, back on the county circuit, says he knows his body has a certain amount of deliveries left in it

- Andy Bull

Sir Jimmy Anderson is running late, five, then 10 minutes past 10 before he arrives in front of his computer. He is dishevelled, like he is just up and into his T-shirt and jeans. He finished his first match since July the previous evening, Lancashire against Derbyshire in the County Championship, on a flat pitch at Old Trafford, and is still feeling it.

The fourth day had been hard going: 16 overs, eight maidens, two for 25, in a thwarted attempt to force victory against a Derbyshire team hell-bent on securing a draw. Lancashire finished two wickets short. "I've woken up feeling like absolute death," Anderson says. "It was a bit of a wake-up call."

He arranges his stiff limbs into his office chair. "You can do all the training you want, but being out in the field for a full day is so different. Particularly on that wicket. You feel like you have to put 100% effort in every ball to get anything from it. So it was interesting getting out of bed this morning."

I mention a line from one of Ian Botham's books, that appeared in this paper that same day. "I knew it was all over the morning it took me five minutes to get out of bed," Botham wrote. Anderson laughs. "I'm not there yet," he says, "but I know what he means."

Anderson will be 43 in July. He has played more Tests than any other Englishman, taken more Test wickets than any other fast bowler, has his own end at Old Trafford and now a knighthood, too. He is a man who manages to make his own first name seem too formal to use, so it is no surprise he seems as comfortable with his new title as a teenage boy with the wedding suit his mother has picked out for him. He almost winces when it's mentioned.