There is a strange beauty about a cricket ground in winter. It is a desolate beauty, a beauty of echoes and of memories of a summer that has flown. It is the beauty of a field left fallow, abandoned for now but only because it is resting. Only because it is waiting for renewal.

Jimmy Anderson stares out at Old Trafford in the light November drizzle from the balcony of a room of the hotel that overlooks the deserted ground and he talks about ‘Flat’ Jack Simmons, David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd, Frank Hayes, Sir Clive Lloyd, Michael Atherton and Andrew Flintoff, great players that have graced this famous old arena.

Anderson is the antithesis of a braggart and so it is left unsaid that he is the greatest of them all, the greatest Test bowler England have ever produced, a man who has taken more Test wickets than anyone in the world apart from Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan.

From where we are standing on the balcony, we can see the final few letters of his name on a sign on what remains of the red-brick pavilion amid its modern extensions at the James Anderson End. Having an end named after you at a stadium makes the need for bragging rather superfluous.

It is funny how people talk about Anderson – who was knighted by the Princess Royal at Windsor Castle last month - in the past tense as a cricketer now when they should be talking about him in the present.

Someone has mentioned that he has to leave in a couple of hours because he is training. I apologise for my ignorance. ‘Training for what?’ I ask him. ‘Pre-season,’ he says, matter-of-factly. ‘I just signed to play another season for Lancashire next year. So, I’ll hopefully captain the four-day stuff and play a bit of white-ball as well.’

No more are the times when county cricketers worked another job in the winter. ‘Those days are gone,’ Anderson says. ‘We started back this week, so it's about six weeks off and then straight back into it. When I first started and the season ended, it was like, "See you in January". But now it's a lot more professional.’

Anderson might not play for England any more and he might be 43 years old but he has not retired. The fact that he does not want to let go of the game he loves and that he is still excelling at it even now that the limelight has moved on, is something that makes the soul sing.

Nothing has curdled. Nothing has soured. ‘There's so many elements to cricket that I love and I've fallen in love with throughout my life,’ he says.

‘Whether that's being in a dressing room environment, whether that's the competition on the field, working a batter out and showing off your skills, or working hard at your skills and then being able to see the results on the field, it still brings me a lot of fulfilment.’

Imagine still being able to say you saw Jimmy Anderson play. Imagine pitching up to Old Trafford next season, perhaps with your son or your granddaughter, and pointing at a figure steaming in to bowl and telling them this is a man who took 704 Test wickets.

But as he stares out over the ground that has been his home as a professional cricketer for nearly a quarter of a century, Anderson knows that he, too, is to be left fallow this winter. For the first time in 19 years, he will not be part of an England attempt to win the Ashes in Australia.

Over the last 10 successive Ashes series, home and away, Anderson was England’s only constant. The contest between the two teams has run through his career like a rich seam. His favourite dismissal was the wicket of Brad Haddin that won an impossibly dramatic first Test on a nerve-shredding final day at Trent Bridge in 2013.

He thinks, too, about the joy of getting the wicket of Mike Hussey in the Boxing Day Test at the MCG in that golden series of 2010-11, the series of 517 for 1 at the Gabba, the series England won 3-1, the last time England won Down Under.

‘Hussey had been a thorn in our side,’ Anderson says, ‘so that felt like a massive moment. I enjoyed bowling Ryan Harris at the WACA that year, too. Mitchell Johnson had been sledging me, trying to wind me up about how I couldn’t get a wicket and then I got Harris next ball. That was fun.’

And then, when Anderson had begun to fix his mind on making it to this winter’s series, which begins in Perth on Friday, that dream was taken away.

It was April last year when he walked into the bar of the Dakota Hotel in Manchester for what he thought was a routine appraisal with England coach Brendon McCullum, managing director Rob Key and captain Ben Stokes only to find out they were ending his 22-year international career.

‘I feel like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas,’ he wrote in his book, Finding the Edge, ‘ushered into a room under the impression that I’m going to get made, only to be shot.’

And so, for the first time in a generation, Anderson’s name will not appear on the scorecard in Perth, or at the Gabba, or the Adelaide Oval, or the MCG or the SCG this winter. Other names – Jofra Archer, Mark Wood, Gus Atkinson, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue and Ben Stokes – will lead the charge this time while Anderson trains with Lancashire and watches the Ashes from his sofa.

‘There's part of me that feels like I wasn't ready to stop,’ Anderson says. ‘I wouldn't say I was planning for this Ashes 18 months ago, but it was there. I wasn't thinking, "I'm not going to be playing that".

‘Maybe there's never a point where you go, "Right, I'm done". But at the same time, I felt like I still had more to offer for England. So, yeah, I do miss it. I miss the battle for five days, the emotional rollercoaster you go on. I miss that side of it, and being around a group of guys for a while, going on tour and things like that.

‘You’re asking if I think I’m still worth a place in this England side? It’s difficult to say. I mean, if I'd have carried on playing Test cricket, I'd have played eight or 10 Test matches since my final Test, and only focused on that and just trained for that.

‘There's a part of me that thinks I could have done that and I could still be playing. There's also a part of me thinking that the pressure I'd be under if I was in Australia now at 43 years old, it's maybe drawing unwanted attention to the team.

‘I saw the comments the other day about only one Australian player in their squad being under 30, and a lot of people have been making a thing of that. I don't think it should be an issue, but people do make it a thing and it can be used to put extra pressure on other players. My age could have become a distraction.

‘I mean, it's amazing when you get a 15-year-old lad playing for Arsenal in the Champions League, and everyone's like, "Oh my God, he's 15" and then, Ronaldo's still playing at 40 and people talk about his age, too.

‘There's just something about that age thing, and there's a period in the middle of your career where people don't mention it, but a commentator will say, "15-year-old on the wing," or, "40-year-old Ronaldo's got a hat-trick at the weekend". It's only in-between, maybe 20 to 30, you can get away with it.

‘Maybe, with England, I just needed someone to tell me I was done. I mean, it doesn't grate. No, it's been 18 months now since it happened, maybe a bit longer, so I've come to terms with it.

‘I've realised my career path's changed, and I loved my time with Lancashire last year, so I've sort of just thrown myself into that and I still feel like I'm getting enough satisfaction. I'm still playing. There's enough motivation there to go on with this for a little bit longer.’

Anderson is philosophical about not being in Perth this week as the excitement around the first Test builds to fever-pitch. He is not missing the press conferences and the hoopla and the circus that comes with the onset of the greatest rivalry in cricket. ‘I have not missed having to fend off all the questions and stuff,’ he says.

But he is anticipating an enthralling and dramatic series. ‘The teams are fairly even,’ Anderson says. ‘We saw that in the last series here. England need to bat well, all the way through. They can't rely on just Rooty (Joe Root) and Ben Stokes and (Harry) Brook. And as much as we talk about the pace of our bowlers, they have got to have control as well.

‘Australia have got a few issues as well. Their captain, Pat Cummins, is not going to be in that first test because of injury. There are question marks about who’s going to bat in their top three. And it’s a massive advantage for England not playing at The Gabba first up.

‘Perth, where the first Test will be played, suits England more than it does Australia. It’ll suit our bowlers and the bounce will suit our batters, the way they play, I feel. It’ll suit their aggression.

‘And then the second Test in Brisbane being a day-night game, I don’t think that’s necessarily an advantage for England but it evens that match up a bit. The Gabba’s traditionally been a fortress for Australia but a pink-ball Test gives England more of a chance.’

But Anderson also knows how quickly things can get away from a touring England team in Australia. He has been part of a winning side but he has also been part of teams where a tour has ended in a 5-0 whitewash. Losing in Australia is slow torture.

‘There were elements I'd look forward to and elements that I would dread,’ Anderson says. ‘There was some scar tissue. I guess you'd dread getting off to a bad start because you know what's coming then. I didn’t play in the 2002-03 series but I was on the one-day trip and so I was around the Test group and I saw what that did to people.

‘I played in 2006-07 (a 5-0 whitewash) and that wasn’t good. When you lose that first Test, you're like, "Oh, this could end really badly". You get onto a bad run, and I remember in 2013-14, it felt like everything was collapsing around you. It’s difficult then. If you lose that first Test, you’ve six more weeks and you start to think this could end really badly.

‘This time, I actually think it feels more like 2010-11 to me. Australia didn't have a spinner, there was debate around their batting order and stuff like that. It feels similar now. There's a little bit more focus on them, rather than the settled team that they normally have.

‘That could play into England's hands a little bit. They’ll try and destabilise Joe Root with stuff about his record in Australia and they’ll go for Ben, too, but those two will be able to handle it. The danger will be if there starts being headlines about younger, more inexperienced guys.

‘They'll get one little sniff and then it just snowballs into something bigger. It becomes a thing, and you're answering questions about it for the rest of the series, and you can't put it to bed. I feel like this time they're going about their business in a good way. Try and keep those stories to a minimum.

‘Perhaps the Aussies will start going on about playing golf, or whatever it might be. They'll pick up on some other stuff, but Brendon McCullum and Ben will keep most of that noise out and try and get the guys to just focus on playing cricket. As long as no one does anything silly and individuals aren't picked on, then it should be fine.’

And so Jimmy gets up to go. Training’s a few miles away and he will be there early. He is playing with lads like Andrew Flintoff’s son, Rocky, who was born seven years after Anderson made his Lancashire debut.

‘Oh, God, yeah, it makes you feel old,’ Anderson says, ‘but pretty much everything that you do now makes you feel old. But I feel like there's a sense of achievement there, too, for me. I played alongside his dad and now I’m playing alongside him.

‘I want to try to show them how hard you need to work to get ready for the season, and I want try and keep up with them, as well, which is maybe not a good thing at my age. 

'But I feel like it's a challenge to show that. I’m saying to them, "I'm fitter than you, you should be faster than me”. I try and look at the positive side of it rather than thinking, "Jesus”... I’m still loving this game. I want to squeeze every last drop out of it.’

Jimmy Anderson will be writing exclusively for Daily Mail Sport throughout the Ashes