Graeme Swann takes flight on Test debut
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
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England’s resurgence against South Africa at the end of the summer was based on the principle of a five-man attack, and it was this that stood them in good stead again yesterday, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
Having waited a decade after his first tour to receive his cap, Swann needed just three balls to make his mark. Gautam Gambhir cut the spinner’s first ball for four, survived a confident appeal off the second then decided, strangely, to let the third ball hit him tamely on the pad in front of off stump without playing a shot — generosity to a debutant of the most extreme kind. Three balls later, Swann had an even bigger feather to adorn his new blue cap when Rahul Dravid was defeated by sharp turn and bounce. Swann’s celebration this time had as much to do with umpiring as a batsman’s generosity.
Vic Marks describes Swann's performance in detail in the Guardian.
To the next ball the little Indian left-hander, the scourge of the Australians, decides not to play a shot. The ball thuds into his front pad. Swann swivels and pleads. Pause, pause... come on Daryl, come on Daryl… and the antipodean digit is raised, a decision vindicated by the replays ... To the next ball the little Indian left-hander, the scourge of the Australians, decides not to play a shot. The ball thuds into his front pad. Swann swivels and pleads. Pause, pause... come on Daryl, come on Daryl… and the antipodean digit is raised, a decision vindicated by the replays.
Graeme Swann is the sort of bloke most other blokes want to go out for a pint with, the sort of bloke who would take two wickets in his first over in Test cricket with a pile of pretty unmitigated filth, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
It took a regime change – perhaps both in Swann as well as the England selectors – for him to be given another England chance, in the one-day squad for Sri Lanka last year. Almost eight years after he made a solitary appearance in South Africa, and only then because of injuries, he was back. This time he did not blow it. He might not, quite, have made every bus precisely on time but he has proved himself to be a thinking cricketer, and as always a jolly presence in the dressing room. And when an Indian tour came, England, for once, needed a second spinner.
The catalyst for England's jubilant dismantling of India's top order was Graeme Swann. A swan song properly occurs at the end of a Test career but Swann, a great extrovert and not a man to be restrained by tradition, chose to have his at the start. One over into his Test career he had the wickets of Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid. It does not get much better than that, writes David Hopps in the Guardian.
One minute Graeme Swann is a big dog sweating with nerves about playing India in Chennai, the next he is setting off like a greyhound with his England team-mates in tow having taken two wickets in his first over in Test cricket, writes Derek Pringle in the Telegraph.
In the Guardian Rob Smyth looks at the other remarkable first overs in Test cricket.
Also in the Guardian, Mike Selvey says that he knows from experience that a successful first over is not a guarantee of future wicket-taking riches.
Early prosperity is no guarantee of sustained success — just ask Jon Lewis, who took a wicket with his third ball in Test cricket, against Sri Lanka in 2006, and did not play another Test, writes Patrick Kidd in the Times.
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo