James Anderson admits he was tempted by the idea of succeeding Alastair Cook as England Test captain earlier this year but was never approached about the job.
Cook resigned earlier this year after 59 matches and four and a half years at the helm, with Joe Root swiftly promoted to fill his shoes.
Root's vice-captain Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Stuart Broad were also vetted for the job but Anderson, the country's record wicket-taker and a veteran of 122 Tests, was not considered.
At 34 and with injuries increasingly taking their toll, the vacancy may have come a little late but he would still have welcomed being part of the conversation.
"It would have been nice to have been considered for it but whether I would have taken it or not, I am not sure," he said.
"Thinking about it from a personal point of view I would have seriously thought about it. But if I was on the outside looking in I would have thought 'is this actually where the team needs to go, with a 34-year-old as captain?'
"I don't know how long I am going to be able to keep going for and in the grander scheme of things it makes sense for a younger guy to do it."
While Anderson is pragmatic about his own claims on the top job, he is also happy to fight the corner for fast bowlers at large.
Captaincy has become almost the sole preserve of the top order, with only a smattering of names bucking the trend globally in the past 30 years.
In recent memory only Broad, who grew up as a batsman, has been treated as officer class, serving as Twenty20 captain between 2012 and 2014.
"I don't know why that is," said Anderson.
"Bowlers do tend to get injured, I suppose, and that might be why Stuart Broad didn't get asked this time. I think they would do a good job and are suited to it."
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