Posts Tagged: Graeme Swann

0England and Wales Cricket Board logoA game of nerve?

It’s that time again — the nights are long, the air is cold, but soon the radio will fire into life and bring the sounds of Aus­trali­an sum­mer to our ears. Will Eng­land come back from the pre­vi­ous white­wash with a win (as they did in 2010-11, or will Aus­tralia com­plete a 3rd white­wash in 4 series. I for one am bet­ting it won’t be a draw!
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0India take the initiative into the third test

Two tests in, 1–0 to India. England’s poor sum­mer con­tin­ued apace today with a shock­ing (sorry, appalling) col­lapse after lunch today to hand the vis­it­ors the ini­ti­at­ive going for­ward into the rest of the series. On cur­rent evid­ence it would be hard to see past India win­ning the series.
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0England in need of Moore summer class

Apo­lo­gies one and all for a lack of recent mus­ings – it’s all due to a new arrival in the house­hold which has meant my wak­ing (and sleep­ing) hours are com­pletely dom­in­ated by bottle feed­ing ses­sions and nappy changes – yes a little bambino has arrived. Give her about 18 years and she’ll be play­ing for England.
Any­way; to business.
Well, to para­phrase Wil­li­am Shakespeare some­what, that was a winter of dis­con­tent for Eng­land. After pretty inept per­form­ances in the Ashes most would have thought it couldn’t get any worse. It did – the humi­li­at­ing defeat against the Neth­er­lands (even if it was a ‘dead rub­ber’) prov­ing the coup de grâce. Before and since that final sham­bol­ic out­ing there have been some high pro­file cas­u­al­ties — gone are coach Andy Flower, middle order main­stay Jonath­an Trott and spin king Graeme Swann. And then of course there is the whole saga around Kev­in Pietersen. Glove­man Matt Pri­or will also be nervously look­ing over his shoulder as oth­ers threaten his place in the side.… Read Full Article

0Australia steam on in battle against Proteas

When Eng­land squared up to Aus­tralia in the last Ashes series I, like many, thought the vis­it­ors would retain the urn dur­ing the five match series. It was always going to a tough­er battle than the sum­mer show­down but vic­tory was expected.

Play­er for play­er Eng­land were just too strong, weren’t they? At the time, with the standout excep­tion of middle-order maes­tro Michael Clarke, a com­bined XI of the two sides would have been dom­in­ated by the three lions. Oth­er than skip­per Clarke who would have made the com­bined side? Per­haps Dav­id Warner for Michael Car­berry? A fit Ryan Har­ris in for either Chris Trem­lett or Tim Bresnan? Cer­tainly the former, prob­ably the lat­ter. A place for Shane Wat­son? Maybe – but who would he replace? On the face of it, how­ever, Eng­land cer­tainly appeared the stronger out­fit.… Read Full Article

0Ashes to Ashes, England to Dust

For what I am about to say may I be struck down from above…but I am glad that this Ashes series is at an end. Quite simply Aus­tralia have played far bet­ter than the sum of their indi­vidu­al parts and Eng­land have been, for the large part, abso­lutely diabolical.

As sure as night fol­lows day the Aus­sies wrapped up a dev­ast­at­ing 5–0 series win, yet again bowl­ing Eng­land out for a piti­ful total not worthy of an inter­na­tion­al line up. The vis­it­ors now need to go back, re-group and pick up the pieces from this poten­tially dis­astrous tour down-under.… Read Full Article

0Graeme Swann announces immediate retirement

Amongst the wreck­age of the Ashes tour comes anoth­er seis­mic bomb­shell — the best Eng­lish spin­ner in a gen­er­a­tion has handed his tick­et in.

Yes it’s true — Graeme Swann has announced his imme­di­ate retire­ment. What a massive loss. Swann was a great play­er, com­pet­it­or, fight­er and all-round team man. He could even hold a bat the right way round.

Hav­ing taken 255 wick­ets in his test career at a shade under 30 a piece, his record is there for all to see and it’s going to be very hard to replace him. As always with Eng­land there’s hardly a queue of spin­ners banging down the door to take his place in the side. So does that mean we go back to the days of only ever pick­ing a twirler when the pitch suits rather than a first choice?… Read Full Article

2T20England’s BROADside about resting players

As I sit listen­ing to the T20 freak-show (it mar­gin­ally beats whatever soap based rub­bish the wife is watch­ing) I’ve been con­tem­plat­ing the debate that’s been stirred after Eng­land res­ted five key play­ers for the ODI series.

Cap­tain Cook, Bell, Graeme Swann, Jimmy Ander­son and T20 cap­tain Stu­art Broad are all put­ting their feet up and let­ting a new-look Eng­land take on the Aus­sies for the five match series.

Former Cap­tain Michael Vaughan has had his say and Stu­art Broad has fired back. The media have of course jumped on to a healthy debate and stirred it into a bit of a row.… Read Full Article

1The Ashes urnAustralia hold the upper hand — in a dead rubber match

Two days in and Aus­tralia cer­tainly have the upper hand. But so what. The Ashes are won and won pretty con­vin­cingly at that. This is a dead-rub­ber match and is very remin­is­cent of Ashes series of old when Eng­land used to sud­denly pull a decent per­form­ance out of the hat when the urn was in the pos­ses­sion of the Aus­sies. Play­ers who time and time again let the team down would sud­denly grab a five-for or score a cen­tury and their series aver­age to the his­tor­ic observ­er would look half-decent.… Read Full Article

1England and Wales Cricket Board logoAussies Tonked — Now to the Future

Firstly an apo­logy for not updat­ing the site much of late – along with the oth­er author for this site I’ve been on a drive through Europe.

We are back now though, so fear not.

So, Eng­land wrapped up the Ashes with a barn­storm­ing per­form­ance on the last day to well and truly send them pack­ing. A lot has been writ­ten already about England’s per­form­ance and, in par­tic­u­lar, Stu­art Broad’s per­form­ance. It was excel­lent, end of.

So I’m going to con­cen­trate on some­thing a little dif­fer­ent, a little off-centre if you will.

When Aus­tralia were at their peak a few years back (seems so long ago now!) the one mis­take they made was not to blood up-and-com­ing young­sters so they had a chance to exper­i­ence the highs and lows of test match crick­et.… Read Full Article

0The Ashes urn3–0 to England… what have we learned?

I’ve been away on hol­i­day for the past 2½ weeks and haven’t had chance to write about the crick­et.  Dur­ing that time there have been 2 more Ashes test matches and Eng­land have exten­ded their lead to 3–0.  Hav­ing been away from all the talk­ing heads I haven’t heard what they have to say, so here are some of my own thoughts, unin­flu­enced by the pundits.

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