By Peter Hayter
Last updated at 10:39 AM on 2nd January 2011

Graeme Swann is England’s clown prince and king of the sprinklers. His brilliant impressions of Richie Benaud and Tony Greig — ‘I’m praaahd to be English’ — make his video diary a must-watch, and he has more than 120,000 followers on Twitter.

But now he can look back on a world-leading 64 Test wickets in 2010 and he has set himself to do even better in the year ahead.

England have three bowlers in the top six Test wicket-takers, Swann heading a list that
continues with Dale Steyn and Jimmy Anderson.

No wonder England’s best off-spinner since Jim Laker rates it as a ‘dream year’.

On top of his game: Swann

‘I got married in January, won the World T20 in May and retained the Ashes in December,’ said Swann. ‘It has been a dream period. We’ve played some very good cricket and there are not many England players who can say they have played in two Ashes, won one, retained the other and won a World Cup.

‘Every dog has his day and mine has been over the past year. It has just worked well
for me. I’ve had a lot of luck, a lot of things have gone my way, and I’ve bowled well in
other periods.

‘Players have purple patches and the trick is to enjoy it and not get too far ahead of yourself, because if you start believing your own hype you’re soon on the way back down pretty quickly and nobody likes you.’ 

And of all the 126 Test wickets he has taken so far, does one stand out?

‘It’s always satisfying when you come up with a plan and it works straight away and
Straussy won’t mind me saying it was 100 per cent my idea to put him at second slip and bowl around the wicket at Michael Clarke. I don’t get many pieces of inspiration and brilliance but that was one them and I will take that to my grave with me.'