Swann sparkles on and off the field

London: Graeme Swann sings in the band Dr Comfort and the Lurid Revelations, prefers to bowl in sunglasses and seems set on redefining the adjective chirpy.

Yet behind the bonhomie and the wisecracks stands a considerable cricketer who last year became the first England spinner to take more than 50 Test wickets in a calendar year.

The emergence of the 30-year-old Englishman over the past 12 months as a match-winner with the ball and an enterprising lower-order batsman who averages almost 33 in Test cricket has been startling.

Swann, by his own admission, was too callow a youth to linger long in the international arena when he played a one-day international in Bloemfontein in 2000.

He returned to county cricket to learn his trade and, again on his own admission, coasted on the spin-friendly pitches at Northamptonshire before moving to Nottinghamshire.

A steep learning curve at a county where seam bowlers rule has resulted in him becoming an off-spinner with an energetic action who gives the ball a rip from the first delivery, varies his pace and flight intelligently and is always looking to take wickets.

Swann's ebullient approach paid off handsomely when he dismissed India's Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid in his first over in Test cricket in Chennai and he retains an uncanny knack of taking a wicket in his first over of a new spell.

He overtook Monty Panesar as England's first-choice spinner last year and played a prominent role in his team's wins at Lord's and the Oval, which won back the Ashes from Australia.

Donkey work

Swann finished the year with two man-of-the-match awards in South Africa, including a match-winning performance in the second Test in Durban.

It was the first time since 1964, when Fred Titmus and David Allen rolled over the Springboks also in an innings victory, that spin had won a Test for England in South Africa.

Swann's performances came as a member of a four-man attack, which meant he was thrown the ball earlier than he would normally have expected on pitches which rarely give much aid to the orthodox spinner.

"Obviously going into it with a four-man attack I was expected to do the job, to do the donkey work so it's nice to pick up a few wickets along the way," he told reporters.

"Two man-of-the-match awards in two games, I'll take that to finish off the year quite nicely."

Not the least remarkable aspect of a remarkable 12 months has been Swann's role in the unexpected re-emergence of the finger spinner.

Doped pitches prepared to last a minimum five days, bats designed to propel the ball vast distances and the aggressive mind-set of batsmen in the Twenty20 era appeared to have spelt the end for bowlers who do not employ the wrist to deliver a variety of mystery deliveries.

Instead Swann, South African left-armer Paul Harris and Australian Nathan Hauritz have joined New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori as effective Test bowlers.

Fairground ride

Swann, though, is clearly now the leader of the gang and even Shane Warne could not have bettered the dismissals of Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke last year when the Australian pair groped ineffectually at balls which dipped and spun prodigiously on to their stumps.

While hugely enjoying the glamorous life of a Test cricketer, Swann remains a realist.

He knows he has been helped by the proliferation of left-handers in Test cricket at the moment, to whom his stock delivery is the more dangerous leg-break. Umpires are also now more inclined to give lbws on the front foot after the advent of ball-tracking technologies which show more deliveries would have gone on to hit the stumps than previously thought.

"The game goes in circles; in three or four years' time it (finger spin) will be completely out of vogue again so I'll just enjoy the fairground ride while I can," Swann said.

"You know, 15 years ago no one teed off the from the start in one-day cricket. There was no such thing as Twenty20. The whole thing goes in circles. It will come back round sooner or later, a brilliant mystery spinner will arrive and I'll be defunct."

As England have failed to produce a mystery spinner since Bernard Bosanquet invented the googly at the turn of the 20th century, Swann's place looks safe for the time being.

Now he must prepare for the ultimate test awaiting him in Australia, the graveyard of so many England spinners' hopes, when England defend the Ashes at the end of the year.