The wrecking ball and the subtle knife

As Ian Botham prepared to deliver the final ball of his career, which came for Durham against the touring Australians in 1993, he paused at the end of his run, undid his flies and, in his own immortal words, "hauled out the meat and two veg".

Then he charged towards David Boon and brought down the curtain on his thunderous, unblinking era. It was a very Botham-esque end.

When the time comes for Jimmy Anderson it's difficult to imagine a repeat, and not just because cricket trousers don't come with zips any more. Botham was England's Falstaff, Anderson has been its brooding Heathcliff. They seem to share little except for their positions at the head of the list of England's wicket-takers and a mastery of the spooky art of swing bowling. Even in that, they are separate. Botham was a tank, a wrecking ball, a force of nature with a golden arm. Anderson's artistry appears far more delicate.

Vulnerability is a part of it. Fast bowlers don't always have that, but Anderson's magic needs the alchemy of shine and air, of physics we don't yet fully understand. Right from the start, Botham took his own greatness as read. He assumed the mantle like a cowboy swaggering into a saloon bar. Jimmy's career has always been more equivocal.

Mike Watkinson, his first coach at Lancashire, talked to Anderson about the fingertip feel that began to imbue his natural pace with late swing. Such was his skill that he moved from the Lancashire League at 17 - where he was known as "the pro killer" for his ability to dismiss the opposition professional - to England by the age of 22. Fine judges rated him. Mark Ramprakash recalled to Lawrence Booth a second-ball dismissal the first time he faced Anderson. Nasser Hussain went first ball when he encountered Jimmy. Hussain told Booth that his initial impression of the kid that soon joined his England side was of natural brilliance - "the kind of player you might get from Pakistan".

His rise was stalled by one of England's most infamous examples of over-coaching.

Like Botham, he was hard-headed enough to solve his own problem, and like Botham he has been gifted with innate strength, albeit of a different kind. Beefy was all brawn, allied to a heart the size of a dustbin lid. Anderson's physique is more reminiscent of Roger Federer's - he is lithe, athletic, and apparently uninjurable.

Sir Ian is lugging a present around the Caribbean that will go to Jimmy when the record falls. Generous by nature and with his legend assured, Botham will not overly mourn the passing of the torch, but a part of him will be glad that it goes to a fellow swing bowler.

Anderson has never had Botham's dominance. By the end of the 1981 Ashes, the great man's average stood at 21.20, and it only really crept up as age robbed him of his pace. It was never higher than 28.40, which is where it finished after his final Test against Pakistan in 1992. Anderson's has been up at 39, and has been hovering around the landmark 30 since 2013.

Botham also had an X-factor that's impossible to replicate, yet Jimmy has had his moments. When he ripped the top from Australia's batting on the first morning in Adelaide in 2010; when he hammered away at Brad Haddin at Trent Bridge in 2013; his destruction of Virat Kohli last summer; all had the same thrill of a man that can make special things happen.

Discussions over Jimmy's putative greatness can wait. For now, 100 Test matches, the England record and soon that 400th wicket take him into the elite of the world game. He may even surpass Kapil's 434 and end his career with only Walsh and McGrath as fast bowlers ahead of him on the all-time list (although Dale Steyn lurks on 396, too).

For a long time, it looked as though such honours may pass Jimmy Anderson by. It's testament to his physical and emotional commitment to his delicate, often lethal, artistry that he is now so close. Long may his flies stay zipped up.