Graeme Swann

Graeme Peter Swann (born 24 March 1979) is an English former cricketer who played all three formats of the game.

Born in Northampton, he attended Sponne School in Towcester, Northamptonshire.

He was primarily a right-arm off-spinner, and also a capable late-order batsman with four first-class centuries, and often fielded at second slip.

Swann could score quickly; his test strike rate is the third highest of any male English batter to have scored at least 1000 runs after Harry Brook and Ben Duckett.

After initially playing for his home county Northamptonshire, for whom he made his debut in 1997, he moved to Nottinghamshire in 2005.

As a teenager, he was part of the U-19 World Cup winning side in 1998, a tournament that took part in South Africa (alongside future England players Owais Shah and Robert Key).

Against Leicestershire in 1998 he scored 92 and 111, his maiden first-class half-century and century.

Touring South Africa and Zimbabwe with the England A-team that winter, Swann took 21 wickets at 25.61 and averaged 22 with the bat.

Wisden commented,

"Swann did spin the ball appreciably and emerged as a definite candidate for elevation. He had the potential to become a genuine allrounder, with a wide range of attractive strokes, though he needs to use them more selectively."

In 1999, Swann was brought into the England squad for the final Test against New Zealand.

He did not play, but featured in an ODI against South Africa following an injury to Ashley Giles.

This tour also saw him miss the team bus once due to oversleeping.

Swann played a very poor single One Day International against South Africa in 2000, before losing his place in the squad.

In domestic cricket, Swann scored his highest first-class score of 183 in 2002, sharing a partnership of 318 with Northants captain Mike Hussey (310 not out).

He moved to Nottinghamshire in 2005, and finished the season of 2007 with 516 runs and 45 wickets, leading to his recall to the England side against Sri Lanka.

While England fell heavily in defeat during the first match, Swann hit 34 to help seal victory in the second, and took four for 34 and hit 25 in the third as England took a two-one lead in the series.

An unsuccessful tour of New Zealand followed, and Swann was unable consistently to occupy a place in the England ODI side.

He remained in the squad but faced tough competition from Samit Patel, who had already taken his first ODI five-wicket haul, against South Africa in his third match.

Following a loss of form by Monty Panesar, alongside whom Swann had played for Northamptonshire, Swann made his Test debut against India in December 2008, and made an immediate impact, dismissing Gautam Gambhir with his third delivery and Rahul Dravid with his sixth, both lbw, thus becoming only the second player in Test history after Richard Johnson (also for England) to take two wickets in his first Test over.

Seven years later he was chosen to accompany England on its tour of Sri Lanka as the team's second spin bowler, alongside Monty Panesar, and subsequently cemented a regular place in England's Test team, playing throughout England's 2–1 victory in the 2009 Ashes.

In December 2009, he became the first English spinner to take 50 wickets in a calendar year, culminating in back-to-back man of the match awards in the first two Tests of the tour of South Africa and rising to third place in the world rankings for bowlers.

In the Third Test in the West Indies in February 2009, he was brought back into the Test fold following the poor form of Panesar, and in this match collected his first five-wicket haul in a Test, 5 for 57 in the West Indies' first innings, including two wickets in two balls.

This was the second-best performance ever by any spinner in Antigua.

Swann also collected five wickets in the first of the West Indian innings in the Fourth Test.

In addition to a score of 63 not out batting at 9, he took six more wickets in the first home Test of 2009, again against the West Indies, at Lord's.

This included three for sixteen in five overs in the first innings, removing Devon Smith, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Brendan Nash.

At the end of the one-day series against the same opposition, the England players were permitted to rejoin their counties in the build-up to the 2009 ICC World Twenty20 tournament.

Swann gave a good account of himself in the World Twenty20, bowling tidily for his five wickets "while showing the passion for playing for his country that," according to journalist Nick Hoult, "endears him to England supporters."

Swann had done enough in the year preceding the 2009 Ashes to be considered England's premier spinner, overtaking Panesar.

The pertinent question was not whether Swann would play, but which of Panesar and Adil Rashid, the other two spinners in the England squad, would play with him.

He went on to play in all five matches of the series.

Panesar was selected for the first Test, but his bowling did not impress and he was dropped for the remainder of the series, leaving Swann as England's only slow bowler.

Swann was a member of the England team that won the 2010 ICC World Twenty20.

In March 2010, Swann became the first English off-spinner since Jim Laker to take 10 wickets in a match when he achieved the feat in England's victory in the first Test in Bangladesh.

In May, he was named ECB Cricketer of the Year.

In 2011 Swann was part of the England team that claimed the No. 1 ranking in Test cricket and between July and October that year was the No. 1 ranked bowler in ODIs.

During the 2013–14 Ashes series loss, he retired from international cricket on 21 December 2013 with immediate effect.

After retirement, Swann took part in the BBC television show Strictly Come Dancing.

Swann began his domestic career for Northamptonshire.