The start of the county championship usually means cheap wickets on fresh pitches for 78mph seamers – but Graeme Swann, England’s last world-class spinner, believes it doesn’t have to be this way.
Ever since Swann retired from Tests during the 2013-14 Ashes because of a chronic elbow condition, England’s attitude to slow bowling has been one of make do and mend.
Their leading wicket-taker in Tests since then has been Moeen Ali, with 204 at an average of 37, followed by Jack Leach, with 142 at 34. But it says a lot that third in the list is Joe Root, whose occasional off-breaks have collected 68 wickets at 45.
The failure of county cricket to produce a worthy heir to Swann, whose 60 Tests brought his aggressive off-spin 255 wickets at under 30, is the reason why Rob Key, Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes have all but bypassed the domestic system and fast-tracked the 21-year-old Shoaib Bashir.
And while Swann says Bashir was an ‘absolute revelation’ in his first year of Test cricket, he believes the conservatism and short-term thinking of the county game have hampered England’s chances of unearthing more like him.
‘The problem with English cricket, when it comes to spin bowling, is it’s so stuck in its ways,’ he tells Mail Sport from India, where he is commentating on the IPL.
Graeme Swann is England’s last world-class spinner and took 255 Test wickets
Ever since Swann retired from Tests during the 2013-14 Ashes because of a chronic elbow condition, England’s attitude to slow bowling has been one of make do and mend
Swann won three Ashes series, in 2009 (pictured), 2010-11 and 2013
‘Counties are happy to have dibbly dobblers, 75mph bowlers: it’s what they think makes them most competitive.
‘But if you get a world-class spinner in your team, and play on proper cricket wickets that disintegrate by days three and four, you’ll win things.
‘If you look at any team that has won the championship over the past 20 years, it’s either been with exceptional seam bowling on decent pitches, like Surrey, or it’s Essex, who have had Simon Harmer, or Sussex, with Mushtaq Ahmed, where a spinner is taking 100 wickets and playing on dry pitches.
‘Military medium pace might help you finish midtable, but it’s dull cricket and it’s stuck in the past. It doesn’t do anyone any favours.’
Swann, now 46, is not some old pro grumbling unhelpfully about the glory days: he does consultancy work as a coach for the ECB, and has witnessed at close quarters the new generation of English spinners. He just feels they don’t always get the help they need.
‘There has to be a massive sea change in how we do spin in England,’ he says. ‘If you have a pitch that turns excessively on day one, you get docked points. That’s absolute horse****. If the bounce is consistent, then it doesn’t matter how much the pitch turns.
‘Some of the wickets you go play on in the subcontinent turn from day one, and we get bowled out for nothing. Then we say, yeah, but the pitches turned. Well, it’s because we don’t allow it in the UK.
‘If you want people to develop, both young spinners and batters, you’ve got to play on turning pitches – and from day one, which would encourage counties to play spinners in a more attacking role.
Monty Panesar and Swann both came through the ranks at Northamptonshire
Shoaib Bashir is first-choice for his country but – because of Somerset team-mate Jack Leach – second-choice for his county
Swann agrees with Bashir’s decision to leave Taunton in search of game time at Glamorgan
‘I grew up in Northampton, where the pictures were left dry to turn, but we ended up with bloody good spinners: myself, Jason Brown, Michael Davies, Monty Panesar – people who could play international cricket.
‘If you go to Northampton now, they don’t turn any more, because they got docked points a couple of times. When Somerset’s wickets turned, they got absolutely nailed by everyone. It’s crazy.’
Talk of Somerset brings us back to Bashir, who is first-choice for his country but – because of Leach – second-choice for his county. Last summer, in a bid for more red-ball cricket, he played once on loan for Worcestershire. Now, he’s spending the start of the season across the Bristol Channel at Glamorgan.
The scenario, which is complicated by the emergence at Taunton of Archie Vaughan’s promising off-breaks, sums up the contrasting attitudes to spin of England and the counties. But Swann refuses to blame Somerset.
‘If I was Bash, I’d respect their way of thinking,’ he says. ‘But I’d look to find a permanent county as soon as possible. It’s as simple as that.
‘There is no point being a Test bowler and being a back-up at a county where you can’t get a game. They have a mindset that’s vastly different to how England think – they’re never going to agree.
‘But one thing where you do shake your head a bit is you see a guy who wins Test matches for England and you can’t see how you then win county matches for yourself?’
Swann is excited by English cricket’s spin-bowling talent, singling out Jack Carson (‘he can be brilliant’) and Sussex team-mate Bertie Foreman, as well as Nottinghamshire’s 17-year-old Farhan Ahmed, brother of Test leg-spinner Rehan.
Swann believes 24-year-old Sussex spinner Jack Carson ‘can be brilliant’
He also highlights Carson’s Sussex team-mate Bertie Foreman, an off-spinner
Swann also has his eyes on Nottinghamshire’s Farhan Ahmed, the 17-year-old brother of England Test leggie Rehan
But when the cream of the young spinners underwent what Swann calls a ‘bowl-off’ in Abu Dhabi a couple of years ago, it was Bashir who stood out.
‘He had the extra height and these huge fingers, and when he gets it right with his action, he gets beautiful shape on the ball and gets turn,’ he says. ‘That was what we were after for Test cricket.’
What advice does Swann have for Bashir if and when he gets taken this winter to Australia – so often a graveyard for finger spinners?
‘It’s just a very different role you play over there,’ he says. ‘The biggest role England could play to support the spinner in Australia is to get 450 runs on the board. That’s what wins you Test matches in Australia. It’s how we won in 2010-11.
‘Everyone says, oh, you bowled well. But Cookie and KP and everyone would just pile it on, day in, day out, and you don’t lose Test matches if you’re that far ahead.
‘The spin bowler can then just settle in. If you’re forever defending 200, you’re screwed over there.
‘If England get it all together, Bash will do a brilliant job. He may win a game at Adelaide, maybe at Sydney, and if there’s any left-armers, then he might have footholes to bowl into.
‘If you get big runs, you’re not fighting fires, you’re setting them ablaze. That then allows the battering-ram seamers to run up and do their job, and the spinner at the other end to do his. And if that happens, we can win over there.’
Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen’s mammoth runs set up the 2010-11 Ashes series victory
India do get too much – but good luck doing anything about it
Hats off to the World Cricketers’ Association (formerly FICA), who last week poked their head above the parapet to make some constructive suggestions about how to safeguard international cricket – outside the Big Three and World Cups – in the age of the T20 franchise.
Central to their proposals was the idea that the game’s economics are ‘not optimised, balanced or used effectively to achieve competitive balance and growth’, which roughly translates as: India get too much of the pie.
The WCA are right, of course – just as they are right when they restate the problem by arguing that ICC revenue distribution should take place ‘within minimum and maximum parameters’.
But who’s going to enforce this? In the WCA’s thinking, the bosses will be a new-look ICC, ‘empowered to lead the global game’. It’s just a shame the BCCI won’t stand for it.
Does Ollie still want it?
What next for Ollie Robinson, who played the most recent of his 20 Tests in February 2024, and irked the England management so much that he is in danger of finishing with the unfulfilled stats of 76 wickets at under 23?
We’d have asked the man himself, only to discover at the Sussex media day that he had declined to talk.
Assuming Robinson wants his Test place back, he should be letting the world know – off the field by assuring fans of his commitment, and on the field with a hatful of early-season wickets.
He’s always had the talent. Whether he has the appetite remains unclear.
Ollie Robinson has always had the talent. Whether he has the appetite remains unclear
MS Dhoni is still going at 43 years old in the IPL for Chennai Super Kings
Don’t dare diss Dhoni!
For a couple of years now, the 43-year-old MS Dhoni has been a brand name rather than a cricketer.
Now, former Chennai Super Kings and India team-mate Ambati Rayudu has dared to ask whether the incessant hero worship ‘serves the game well’.
Brave man!
