Swann Retires

[amiret]

If Ishant had any shame he would have quit after the Australian tour.

[thongale]

chicken out?

[Sidhoni]

Didn't see this one coming, surely not mid-series.

[Austin 3:!6]

Great great spinner and definitely the best England produced after jim laker. I am so gutted by this news. This shows English players only care about their team and not personal achievements. Have a wonderful future Swanny boy :hatsoff:

[putrevus]

Best off spinner since Erapalli prassana no nonsense of chucking and all that crap. Clean bowler with a very good record in India too which many spinners chuckers included cant say they have that we had the biggest chucker play against India so many times.

[King Tendulkar]

I guarentee reason for calling it a day. IPL

[putrevus]

I guarentee reason for calling it a day. IPL

nothing wrong with it if he wants to earn money now. He did the best he could and he was very good on a very good team.

[King Tendulkar]

nothing wrong with it if he wants to earn money now. He did the best he could and he was very good on a very good team.

Well agree. Personal choice. But new auction coming, he is now fully frre and availble. IPL franchises know this now and so much bigger price he will get

[jf1gp_1]

This is the type of fallout i was expecting from our seniors when we got shamed 0-8 on the last 2 overseas tours... Instead, our legends kept guys like pujara out of the side for whatever reason. Instead of calling swann out for retiring at this time it would be better to respect his achievement as one of the best spinners over the past 6-7 years and acknowledge that he did the right thing.... I remember so many comments on here during our 0-8 drubbing asking for senior players to quit/retire/be dropped etc.... So not sure why the hypocrisy when someone actually does that? I think England's attack is going to take a big hit as he provided them the type of variety that I don't remember England having since I started watching cricket... they mostly had bits n pieces spinners until Swann made his mark on a consistent basis.... Good luck to him and congratulations on a very good test career.

dont say seniors cause only sachin played after 0-8 unless you are also including a then 30yr old dhoni

[Lord]

dont say seniors cause only sachin played after 0-8 unless you are also including a then 30yr old dhoni

Zaheer?

[sachin34357]

62qGutvVyd0

[coffee_rules]

When the going gets tough, the tough errr ... go home? Talk about rats and sinking ships.

Part of 3 Ashes series wins since debut and also win in India!. Respect where it's due. Best spinner since 2008. Speaks miles about his ability. Sorry to see him go. Wish Harbhajan also announces retirement .

[JourneyMan]

Poor timing, surely he could have waited a couple of weeks? First Trott bottles it and flees, now the lead spinner walks off into the horizon. Not the best of times for England, who have actually had a very good year but are ending it on a poor note.

Monty Panesar ‏@MontyPanesar 2h Congrats @Swannyg66 on brilliant career,will miss playing with the fellow twin..#spintwins

All that alcohol is making the drunk sardarji even more delusional.

[Tiger80]

Monty must be doing :bhangra::bhangra:

[King Tendulkar]

Good for India. Maybe by summer they may think need to try new spinner like borthwick adn we will smoke him. Or kerragan again:hysterical:

[Switchblade]

Good for India. Maybe by summer they may think need to try new spinner like borthwick adn we will smoke him. Or kerragan again:hysterical:

Swann said in his press conference that Borthwick is a good leg spinner who can bat and has that X factor

[Gunner]

Loved watching him bowl, classic action. Best Spin bowler of the post-Warne era.

[Switchblade]

Vaughn and Boycott were praising Swann about his decision to take retirement plus Bob Willis wanted him out of the side after the third test. Sent from my Micromax A110 using Tapatalk

[StriKe]

BBC TMS ‏@bbctms 36s Borthwick arrives in Melbourne today and will be available for selection @mcg. Tredwell will be available for the Sydney Test #ashes

[Switchblade]

Graeme Swann departs with swipe at England team-mates http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cri...eam-mates.html Graeme Swann departed Test cricket with abrupt certainty on Sunday, but not before taking a barely disguised swipe at some of his fellow England players for not respecting the game. “Some people playing the game at the minute have no idea how far up their own backsides they are,” Swann said at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday. “It will bite them on the a--e one day and when it does I hope they look back and are embarrassed about how they carry on.” Swann refused to name those he considers the guilty men but it is well known that he and Kevin Pietersen do not send each other Christmas cards. If other players have raised his hackles he has kept them to himself. It was the most animated moment during his retirement press conference and the only one where he was critical of his team-mates. Otherwise he was full of praise for players who had been his “family” for the past 5½ years. “That is one of the things I’m nervous about to be honest because it is all I’ve been used to and all of a sudden I’ve got my wife and kids to go home to and I’ve not got that sounding board of the changing room with 15 other blokes who know where you’re coming from and have the same bawdy humour to put up with your jokes. “It is well documented that some people struggle after retiring, but I don’t think I will from that point of view, it will just be weird. These are my best mates, and although I’ve got a good network of friends in Nottingham it is still going to be hard waking up without anywhere to be.” Swann welled up several times when talking about the reasons for his retirement and what his career meant to him, but he refused to shed any tears. “I’m not going to cry for you," he said. "I’ve seen so many people cry. It is very emotional because it’s the end of everything I've know, everything I’ve loved. It’s not just England. In February I’m going to have to go to Trent Bridge and clear my locker out. I have so many fond memories of that place. "I know that’ll choke me up when I do that. But to sit here and know I’ve played 60 Tests and however many one-dayers and taken the wickets I have and been involved in the teams I have, I can scarcely believe it. I feel like a lottery winner, I feel ridiculous.” As a Test spinner for England, he is second to Derek Underwood, in terms of wickets, and possibly Jim Laker, though he took more Test wickets than him. “When I went past Jim Laker my mum phoned me up and she was almost in tears as Jim Laker was her dad’s favourite bowler and I only knew Grandad Les until I was seven or eight. “My mum knew nothing about cricket but she always heard him mention Laker and she could not believe I’d gone past him. I couldn’t believe it either as I didn’t know how many wickets he had taken. I feel very humbled to have done that. “The other day I went past Brian Statham, there are stands named after him. Things like that make you pinch yourself and make you wonder how it has all been possible in such a short period of time. I’m incredibly proud of what I’ve achieved. I still think there has been some mystical force that has helped me along the way because surely it is not as easy as that.” Swann’s decision to retire mid-series has not been met with total understanding and there are those who feel he should have stayed the course whether he was picked for the last two Tests or not. After all, his elbow must have still been hurting when he signed his central contract. “There are people who pick fault with everything," he said. "But to carry on playing would be completely the wrong thing for the team regardless of the senior player junior player thing. If you are playing for the wrong reasons you are not helping anybody. "If I played in this Boxing Day Test and the Sydney Test it would be to experience them again and go out waving to the Barmy Army as I walked off. That sort of player doesn’t deserve to be in the team. You don’t build teams around guys like that.” Having been close to both captain and coach he found it hard to tell them of his decision which he says he made during the Adelaide Test when England were still only one down in the The Ashes series. “Cooky knew," Swann said. "I stand next to him at slip and he said, 'I knew something was up’. I found it so hard with Cooky because we spend so much time together, we take the mickey out of each other all the time and we’re next to each other in the changing room too so for two or three days I’ve avoided him thinking the time is not right. So he knew something was coming. I walked into the breakfast room to meet him more nervous than I would be going out to play on the first day of the Boxing Day Test match. It was weird.” Swann says he does not plan to play any more cricket unless it is with his son Wilf or daughter Charlotte, or if an Indian Premier League team makes him an offer he cannot refuse. “I hope I will play games of cricket again in the future and enjoy them and I hope they’re alongside my little boy for the Sunday Seconds when he’s about 15 or something, just showing him the ropes," he said. “I opened the batting with my dad in the Premier League in Northampton. We both got 100 in one game once and I was out in the 21st over. He said take your mark, carry on son and get a double here. I went: ‘Don’t be stupid dad’. I got caught on the boundary next ball and he, to prove a point, went on to get 160 not out. He just walked off and said: ‘You’re an idiot’. “I’m not going to go and play league cricket. I just don’t like fielding enough to do it. But if Wilf gets into cricket and there’s a chance to play with him at some point then I’ll enjoy that.”