Graeme Swann: I'm no longer England's idiot abroad

Swann is speaking to promote his autobiography, The Breaks Are Off, but for seven years it looked like he wouldn't have a story to tell. "Every year I would pretend I didn't care but I knew the winter touring squad would be announced at 11 o'clock on BBC Radio 5 Live so when I was driving I'd tune in and listen in hope for my name. It felt like every off-spinner in the country was in front of me. I had completely written off playing for England."

He had even started to look beyond the boundary ropes of the cricket field. He dabbled with TV and radio work then moved into music. "I wanted to take on the world with my band (Dr Comfort and the Lurid Revelations)," he says. "I went for a beer with (ex-Notts player) Andy Afford and he said we should form a band. That conversation must happen a thousand times a night in pubs around the country. You wake up and think, 'f***ing hell, you wish'. But we did it."

The band started performing gigs in Nottingham. "I remember driving home buzzing more than after any Test match, it was unbelievable," he says. "Funnily enough, it coincided with me getting my England recall. That is a part of my life that people don't know much about. Today I could easily be wearing skin-tight jeans crooning in some crap seaside bar instead of playing for England."

When Swann received his recall for the 2007 one-day tour of Sri Lanka, aged 28, he wasn't just a better singer - he was a changed man. "I was early for everything and ridiculously keen. I'm not a tidy person but I remember putting all my England kit in neat piles - T-shirts, long-sleeved shirts, trousers - and it was as if I was saying, 'Right, don't f**k it up again.' Of course, I've now gone back to my slovenly ways." Not quite. Swann still sets two alarms before journeys - just in case.

Having edged into the England ODI and T20 teams, he was praying for his England Test debut on the 2008 tour of India when the terrorist atrocities in Mumbai caused England to fly home.

"I didn't want to go back to India because I thought it was dangerous," he confesses. "It was purely for selfish reasons that I went back. My dad said, 'This could be your only chance'. If another spinner went instead, I might never get another chance. But I'm so glad we did because of what it meant to the Indian people."

Swann returned to India, made his Test debut in Chennai, took the wickets of Gautam Gahmbir and Rahul Dravid in his opening over and 153 Test wickets, 296,295 Twitter followers, two Ashes triumphs and seven video diaries later, he's a national hero.

"There are certain times in your life when you make decisions and you don't think they have any gravity on your life but they really, really do."

As Swann prepares for England's final series of 2011, which after the opener in Hyderabad features four more ODIs in Delhi, Mohali, Mumbai and Kolkata and a T20 in Kolkata, his musical ambitions seem a distant memory.

"I used to pack my guitar for the down time but now I don't because I've decided it is an unlucky omen from when I wasn't in the team."

Nonetheless, he is reassured to know he could form a band with his England team-mates if they ever fall on hard times.

"I would have [Jonathan] Trott on drums because he's a bit mental. Matty Prior would be our agent. We call him 'Cheese' because he's cheesy. [Stuart] Broad will be on the keyboard, just for the calendar. Jimmy [Anderson] will be on rhythm guitar. I'll be on lead guitar and vocals. We need a bassist . . . we'll use Cook because he's a bit musical as he was a choirboy. He can't sing for toffee now, but neither can I."

After the emphatic 4-0 Test win and a 3-0 NatWest ODI series triumph over India this summer, confidence is high but England have not won a one-day series in India since 1984-85, when David Gower's men triumphed 4-1.

"Our target is to be world-beaters in every format but with the pitches, the heat and the travel, India is one of the hardest places to win," he admits.

"We take a lot of confidence from a brilliant summer but India will come roaring back at us. The Indian one-day pitches don't suit spinners as much as people think.

"The grounds are very small and good for batting as the Indian public are obsessed with one-day cricket and want high-scoring games. But I'm up for the challenge."

Swann identifies MS Dhoni, who accumulated 236 runs in the NatWest ODI series, as India's dangerman.

"He didn't do much wrong all summer, he's very level-headed and he will be formidable in India," says Swann, who highlights Cook and Craig Kieswetter as England's key players.

"I'll say Cooky to brown nose the captain but he was completely written off as a one-day player and he's been phenomenal. Craig Kieswetter really gets us motoring early on. We have a six-hitting competition in training and he hits the ball a country mile. KP can hit it a long way but Kiesy has got him covered."

With England ranked fourth in the world in one-day cricket, this is the format in which Andy Flower's all-conquering team still have much to prove. "We are on a mission to win a one-day tournament and I think in a couple of years England will be if not the best in the world, then certainly right up there," says Swann.
"We should be able to win the 2015 World Cup in Australia. In the World Twenty20 we came up with a brilliant format and we're world-leaders in the Test arena. But we've never been innovators in one-day cricket, we have always imitated. We want to change that."

With an influx of exciting young players like 21-year-old leg-spinner Scott Borthwick, big-hitter Jonny Bairstow, 22, and 20-year-old all-rounder Ben Stokes, who is missing the tour through injury, Swann, once the young troublemaker, is now happy to be the old man of the squad.
"I would love to still be around in 2015," he says. "We have a frighteningly talented young team. You never know if a new Muralitharan will emerge from Sri Lanka or a new raw pace bowler will come out of Pakistan, but guys like Kieswetter, Borthwick, Bairstow and Stokes can take us to the top.

"I made my England debut when Stokesy was six. That's ridiculous. I feel old. But I'm glad I'm here now as an old man doing okay rather than being that 20-year-old idiot in South Africa who just wasn't good enough."

The Breaks Are Off: My Autobiography by Graeme Swann (Hodder & Stoughton), which is out now priced £20.