While cricket waits to crown him king of the bowlers, Graeme Swann is keeping his eyes on the Ashes prize

By Peter Hayter
Cricket Correspondent reports from Melbourne
Updated: 03:30 EST, 12 December 2010

With a Lord’s Nursery End marquee crammed full with a thousand paying guests and sponsors hanging on his every word, the England off-spinner paused briefly before deciding on the correct words with which to inform the eve-of-Ashes charity audience what he was looking forward to most about his first tour Down Under.

Team officials and management also waited with baited breath. Months had been spent trying to make sure no-one said a single word that could be construed as confidence let alone arrogance in advance of the mission to retain the Ashes in Australia for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century. They all knew the success of that part of the operation hinged on what Graeme Swann said next.

‘Well,’ began the best spinner in world cricket, ‘the thing is I’ll almost certainly be p****d from Perth onwards because we’ll have won the Ashes by then.’

Cue wild cheering from the punters. Cue inward groans from the powers that be. Yet here stand England, still trying hard to suppress huge beaming smiles at the sheer scale of their achievement in beating Australia by an innings and 71 runs in the second Test in Adelaide.

High fives: Graeme Swann underlined his status as the world's leading spinner at Adelaide

High fives: Graeme Swann underlined his status as the world's leading spinner at Adelaide

Here they stand ready to refocus all their attention on earning the win at the WACA in the third Test starting on Thursday.

Victory would secure ownership of the urn for another three years at least, a place in English cricket history as the first to win here in the current millennium and the status among even the most one-eyed Australians as The Poms Who Won.

If Swann bowls in Perth as he did when taking 5-91 in Australia’s second innings to spin England to victory at the Adelaide Oval, they will need to close the bars from next week until New Year while he lives up to that tongue-in-cheek promise. He will also almost certainly have established himself as the ICC No 1 ranked bowler in world cricket, with Steve Harmison the only other Englishman to do so in three decades.

Two years on from making his Test debut against India in Chennai — and with 60 Test scalps this year to add to the 62 in the first 13 months of his career at this level — it hardly seemed necessary to ask which of these possible achievements would offer him the greatest satisfaction.

‘To be perfectly honest,’ said a smiling Swann, ‘I’ve never taken the slightest notice of records or statistics or rankings. People tell me I’m ranked two in the ICC World rankings and that I could be the No 1 if this or that happens, and I just say “thanks for telling me”.

‘Two years ago I wasn’t playing Test cricket and didn’t exactly feel close to the team. I was a very happy, jovial tourist but just that. So it’s nice that I got the chance in the first place and that I’ve managed to grab the opportunity.

‘But, and I know this is going to sound like a cliché, I really couldn’t give a monkey’s about being No 1 in the world if we don’t win the Ashes. If we do win I don’t care if I drop down to No 20.

‘Someone told me the other day that I’ve now played 200 first-class matches and I didn’t believe them until they showed me on the computer.’

The centre of attention: But Swann says accolades will not count if England don't retain the Ashes

The centre of attention: But Swann says accolades will not count if England don't retain the Ashes

Little wonder, then, that when Swann is shown the figures to prove his wickets-per-Test ratio (122 in 26 at 4.69) is higher than that of Jim Laker (193 in 46 at 4.19 on uncovered wickets), he looks utterly nonplussed.

Or that when he is asked whether, like Laker, he would like to be thought of as a true England great one day, he responds: ‘Believe me, as long as my mum still thinks I’m the best spinner in the world, I’m happy.’

At 31 and having experienced eight years in the England wilderness — ‘I fully accepted that I’d made a rod for my own back with the previous regime and that wasn’t going to change until the regime changed’ — Swann knows more than enough to make sure he does not get ahead of himself.

He insists that while beating the Australians in Perth, and everywhere else for that matter, is the target, England must carry on performing at their present, stellar level to make it happen.

But he stresses that lessons from the summer of 2009 and, surprisingly, from the events of last week in Adelaide, mean there is no chance whatsoever of eyes deviating from the ball.

Swann explains: ‘At Leeds last year so many people started saying “hang on, we could actually win the Ashes if we win this game” and the old Chinese proverb came to pass — “He who looks at the clouds takes his eye off the plough”. Put that in your paper.

‘Everything then fell into place for us at The Oval, with the conditions, their selection, winning the toss and getting lucky on that first morning. That is not going to happen every time. People argue we got lucky in Adelaide because 20 minutes after we’d won, it banged down with rain.

‘So we’re not taking anything for granted. Yes, if we win in Perth we will keep the Ashes but we won’t think about that because we know how dangerous it is to do so.

‘We are not going to turn round and say we are the best in the world and the Aussies are doomed because we know it’s not true and that we’ve got to keep on playing great cricket to keep the series as competitive as it has been so far.’

Fist of fury: Swann and England move on to Perth knowing that victory will be enough to see off Australian hopes of snatching back the urn

Fist of fury: Swann and England move on to Perth knowing that victory will be enough to see off Australian hopes of snatching back the urn

Even so, Swann makes absolutely no apologies for having the time of his life here.

After spending so long learning and perfecting his trade, he simply thrives on the same feelings he had when playing a bat and ball game in the back garden as a kid.

‘People ask if I have significantly improved as a bowler since I came into the England side and I suppose the answer is yes,’ he says.

‘But what I’ve discovered playing here is that it is exactly the same as playing county cricket except that, because the pressure is hyped up tenfold, strange things happen — like balls that wouldn’t get wickets in county cricket suddenly become unplayable.

‘After having bowled for 12 years I haven’t got to worry too much about my action or where the ball is going to land. I can just concentrate on getting the bloke at the other end out.’

That assessment stands true up to a point.

But no-one should doubt that behind Swann’s hard-earned naivety, the freedom to express it and the comic turn that accompanies it, lives a spinner of great technical skill with the attention to detail and imagination to put his qualities to best use.

And if he succeeds in marshalling those forces in Perth, the retention of the Ashes will surely be followed swiftly by Swann’s elevation to the status of the best bowler in world cricket.

Whether he likes it or not.

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