One year after his retirement from Test cricket, James Anderson remains in no mood to give up playing professional cricket with his 43rd birthday just 15 days away. The England cricket legend will play the country's flagship franchise-based cricket league, 'The Hundred', for the first time this season.

Anderson has signed for Manchester Originals and represents Anderson's county, Lancashire, with the iconic Old Trafford Cricket Stadium as their home ground. The right-arm pacer, who is the second-most capped player in T20 cricket, will make his debut for the franchise during the fifth season of the tournament, which will take place from 5th to 31st August.

Anderson last played for England at Lord's in a Test match against the West Indies last year, but decided to continue playing cricket and played for Lancashire in county cricket. He made his T20 comeback after 11 years after playing in the ongoing 2025 T20 Blast.

Anderson has impressed in the campaign and proved his prowess in the shortest format, and has taken 14 wickets in eight games at an economy of 7.75.

Anderson has been signed by the Orignals as one of their two wildpicks. It is worth noting that the Manchester-based outfit is part of the Super Giants cricket family, which includes Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Lucknow Super Giants, SA20's Durban Super Giants

Earlier this year, when the English Cricket Board (ECB) put up the Hundred Teams up for sale, the RPSG group purchased 70% of the originals with the franchise valued at £116m (Rs. 1338.99 crore).

Sanjiv Goenka shared a heartfelt post on X (formerly Twitter) to welcome Anderson to the team.

"A legend in the squad. Welcome to #ManchesterOriginals, @jimmy9," wrote Goenka.

Anderson had registered for the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) Mega Auction last year but failed to find any bidders in his pursuit of playing the world's richest cricket league for the first time.