Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
SUPERSTARS? NO CHA-CHA-CHANCE
Swann fears England’s posse of world-beating big-hitters will struggle to enjoy his level of fame unless they want to hit the Strictly dance floor like him
GRAEME SWANN fears England’s big hitters may never enjoy the fame he discovered in the last dance saloon.
In his pomp as an off-spinner, Swann was a member of the only England team ever to win a global limited-overs tournament at the World Twenty20 in the Caribbean nine years ago.
The side captained by Paul Collingwood in 2010, when Kevin Pietersen was player of the tournament, never enjoyed superstar limelight despite their achievement because the game disappeared from free-toair TV in Britain 14 years ago.
But Swann, an ambassador for the ICC World Cup in England this summer, found celebrity recognition at every turn as a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing last year.
And he admits English cricket’s current crop of buccaneers like Jos Buttler, Jonny Bairstow and Jason Roy face an uphill battle to command vast audiences like the waltz, foxtrot and tango of Saturday night’s prime-time dance competition.
Swann, who took 255 Test wickets before a chronic elbow injury forced him to retire midway through the 2013-14 Ashes whitewash in Australia, said: “For me, public recognition was tenfold when I did Strictly.
“Even when I nipped to the shop on a Sunday morning, there would be two families waiting outside wanting to take photos and it hit home how far terrestrial TV can reach.
“When there are 12 million people watching you dance, you’re far more famous than you are for playing cricket – which is a shame, because I was really good at cricket.
“I was the best in the world at one point... and then they slated my cha-cha-cha.”
Asked if Buttler (right), scorer of England’s fastest oneday hundred in 2015, would enjoy superstar fame like Ian Botham and Freddie Flintoff, Swann admitted: “Probably not – because cricket is not as wide-reaching as it used to be with satellite television and things like that.
“You never know what’s going to happen and with the BBC getting involved in The Hundred hopefully these players will get into more households.
“I think there was a survey a few years ago which said nobody would know if (recordbreaking former England captain) Alastair Cook was walking down the street.
“But I hope these players do get superstar status like
Botham had when I was growing up.
“For the first time in a long while, I feel confident about England’s chances going into a World Cup – and I’m not just saying that for effect.
“During my playing days, there was a propensity to pick Test players who could do an OK job in one-day cricket, rather than the crop of young players we’ve got now for whom the sky’s the limit.
“We have a fantastic leader – Eoin Morgan is the most impressive captain of any oneday side in the world and that’s why we are favourites.
“The last time England hosted the tournament, I was six months away from going on my first tour with the squad and whiteball cricket has changed beyond all recognition since then. “And being humiliated at the last World Cup was the best thing that could have happened to English cricket – we were slaughtered by teams we should have been equal to and we had to rip it all up.
“Eoin has taken the team by the scruff of the neck and we’ve been exceptional ever since.”