Swann's brother Alec says player was 'never one to follow standard cricketing path'

Former county player Alec Swann has said that his younger brother Graeme was never one to follow the standard cricketing path, according to reports.

According to the Guardian, Graeme's retirement from first-class cricket, or at least from the Test scene, had been rumoured in some quarters but the announcement still managed to retain a significant element of surprise.

A haul of 255 Test wickets, with 17 five-wicket hauls, are the bare statistics, yet they don't serve up anything like the whole tale of the player, the report said.

Timing, situation and place can be used to illustrate, condone or condemn, but they are peripheral issues, which deflect unnecessarily from the realisation that the career of one of England's finest has finished, the report added.