England off-spinner Graeme Swann has announced his retirement from international cricket to leave the whole world of cricket in absolute shock. With few days left before the all- important fourth test match of the Ashes series, Swann’s decision to hang up his boots may well turn to be a body blow for the English team. With England trailing 3-0 in the series and staring at a whitewash this decision of Swann is obviously going to be a debatable one. The timing of his retirement, especially when England needed its senior players to step up to avoid the whitewash, is really a questionable one.
The whole cricketing world was in a state of shock when the news of Swann’s retirement came out. Ryan Harris, who is currently playing for Australia in the ongoing Ashes, said out of surprise, “I don’t know what to say, I thought he’d bowled OK in the series, just without luck I guess.” Another Aussie who has played a lot of cricket against Swann remarked, “Something’s obviously not quite right with him, or he’s fulfilled whatever he wanted to do, but to me that’s a huge shock.” Lyon added, “He’s someone who I’ve looked up a lot. His career stats stand for themselves; he’s been an unbelievable spinner and someone who I watched pretty closely in my time. I’m sure he will be sorely missed in the England team but I wish him all the best in the future.”
Tributes came in from English camp as well. Monty Panesar, who was Swann’s bowling partner in the series against India in the 2012 which England won 2-1, tweeted, “Congrats @Swannyg66 on brilliant career, will miss playing with the fellow twins.” Ben Stokes said, “What a career Swanny has had, very sad to see him retire, great bloke, won a lot of games for England and one of the funniest around.”
Before his shock announcement of retirement he has played 60 test matches and has picked up 255 wickets at an average of 29.96. In 79 ODIs that he has played he has taken 104 wickets at an incredible average of 27.76. He has picked up 5 or more wickets in an innings for 17 times and 10 wickets for 3 times in tests. He has been a prolific performer for England and the stats speak volumes of his dominance over the batsmen across the world. It was mostly because of his bowling prowess that England did fairly well in the 2011 World Cup and looked like doing well. He will surely be missed by England, especially because of the fact that England has never got s spinner of such great quality in their cricket history.
Tags: England Graeme Swann Graeme Swann retires Monty Panesar Swann retirement
