Graeme Swann named ECB Cricketer of the Year
If a week is a long time in politics, then 10 years is a lifetime in professional cricket.
A decade ago, a 20-year-old off-spinner made his England One Day International debut on a tour of South Africa. He did okay, but didn’t set the world alight, and made more headlines by missing the team bus on the way back to the hotel. Duncan Fletcher was less than impressed, and Graeme Swann didn’t don an England shirt again for seven years.
Today, after his time in the wilderness, Swann is an integral part of his country’s team. That bus now waits for him.
The Nottinghamshire spinner was last night named the ECB’s Cricketer of the Year after a stellar twelve months that has seen him claim 99 wickets in 45 matches across all forms of the game, and rising to become the number two bowler in Test cricket in March.
“I am absolutely delighted to win this award,” he said.
“It's been a magical year for me with so many high points. I love playing for England and hope this award can be a stepping stone for even greater things both personally and as part of a successful England team.”
Yesterday was quite a day for Swann, who had spent the afternoon with his England team-mates at 10 Downing Street, where new Prime Minister David Cameron held a reception for the World Twenty20 champions.
The 31-year-old was a key member of that side, taking 10 wickets – the joint highest in the team along with Ryan Sidebottom – as he helped England claim their first ever world title.
It was in the Test arena where Swann really excelled though, both with bat and ball.
March’s 10-wicket haul against Bangladesh in Chittagong was his career best, and was part of five five-wicket hauls throughout a year in which he averaged 26.26 in all forms of the game.
An ever-present in the Ashes winning campaign, Swann took 14 wickets as England reclaimed the urn from Australia, and he was his country’s fourth highest run scorer in the series with 249, which included a 62 at Headingley. His highest score with the bat over the year was December’s 85 in the drawn first Test with South Africa at Centurion.
The first English spinner to take 50 wickets in a calendar year – a feat he achieved in December – has unsurprisingly been named in the squad for the forthcoming home series with Bangladesh, which starts on Thursday, and has quickly become a cult hero amongst England’s Barmy Army.
A conventional off-spinner, he has developed a happy knack of taking wickets in the first over of his spell, and Swann – who beat Stuart Broad, Jimmy Anderson, Paul Collingwood and Andrew Strauss to the ECB award – is also a refreshingly humble character.
“If you'd told me this three years ago I'd have said, ‘No chance’,” he said last night.
“I'm just enjoying every game, going in thinking, ‘This is going to be brilliant fun’, doing the job I always dreamed of but that almost never happened.”
England are delighted that it did happen, and after Swann’s year to remember, he’s ready to make it happen again.
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