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NEWS UPDATE : Asian Cricket Third Sri Lanka-Pakistan ODI abandoned due to rain COLOMBO: The third One-day International between Sri Lanka and Pakistan was abandoned due to rain here at the R Premadasa Stadium on Wednesday. The umpires made this decision after consulting ... Australia want to master all forms of game: Clarke SYDNEY: Australia's limited-overs tour of England and Ireland represents the start of a two-year campaign to make them the top nation in all three forms of the game, captain Michael Clarke said ... Bopara glad to be back for England SOUTHAMPTON, England: Ravi Bopara is eager to make up for lost times as he tries to revive his ... South Africa name unchanged squad for England series JOHANNESBURG: South Africa have kept faith with a winning formula by naming an unchanged squad for the three-Test series in England starting next month, Cricket South Africa (CSA) announced on ...


Monday, August 29, 2011

Swann hopes to shine in the sub-continent tours

Graeme Swann might have left India in a spin in the fourth Test but the England spinner feels his best is yet to come and hopes to peak during the tough series coming up over the next 18 months.Swann helped England complete the 4-0 whitewash in The Oval after snapping nine wickets in the final Test, though he had to spent most part of the four-match series watching his pace colleagues wrecking havoc on the Indian batters."I've hardly had to do anything this summer," Swann was quoted as saying in the Sunday Mirror."If you take The Oval game out of it, I've had my easiest summer ever. I've just stood at second slip watching Jimmy Anderson, Chris Tremlett and Stuart Broad take all the wickets," said Swann, who scalped just four wickets in the first three Tests."I know I'll be looked upon as the main weapon in the subcontinent and be expected to take the wickets. I know I've got a lot of hard work to do in Abu Dhabi against Pakistan and then in Sri Lanka and India he added.Swann considers Sri Lankan as the hardest place for a spinner and said if England have to dominate world cricket then they world need to perform at the sub-continent."In Sri Lanka a spinner has to do all the donkey work. Seamers just can't do it. After four or five overs they are cooked. It's the heat. Sri Lanka is the hardest place to get wickets, but I know I can bowl well there," he said. "It'll be a litmus test for the team. It's been a phenomenal two years for England. I have to pinch myself sometimes."However, if we want to be as dominant as the West Indies team of the 1970s and 80s, and the Aussies from the mid-90s, then we have to do well in the sub-continent," he added.