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Graeme Swann is the rebel of English cricket whose career resurgence has mirrored England’s. He talks about his wild early years, being banished from the national team – and the passing of the game’s drink culture To mark the cricket establishment’s embrace of the ultimate rebel, Graeme Swann is being photographed by the statue of WG Grace outside Lord’s. “Can I stroke his beard?” asks Swann, cuddling the cricketing legend. “You don’t want me riding him like a donkey or anything? He’s got lovely definition in his arms, I’ll give him that,” he says, stroking WG’s bronze forearms. Swann’s irreverence is not quite what cricket’s stuffy authorities might expect of the best one-day bowler in the world, who has just captained England’s Twenty20 team at the end of a triumphant season. But the 32-year-old off-spinner has reached the top on his own terms after he was banished from the England squad for seven years. His twisting ascent mirrors England’s own renaissance. Swann received his first international call-up 12 years ago when England sank to the bottom of the world ratings; his return has followed a period of unaccustomed success. England have become the best international cricket team in the world. “I don’t want to say it’s due to me being back in the team, I honestly don’t, but stats don’t lie,” he says, laughing. “I never believed in stats, I never bought into them until I got to No1 in the world. They definitely do count now.” A sprinkler is ticking away on the lush oval at Lord’s as Swann, feted for his part in England’s thrashing of Australia last winter , settles down in a hospitality box to talk about his autobiography. For decades, off-spinners have been cautious bowlers, deployed by their captains to restrict the batting team’s run-rate rather than take bucketloads of wickets. Swann has become an unusually attacking bowler, taking wickets by spinning the ball hard. His lack of caution on the field is matched by a devil-may-care attitude off it. His cavalier disregard for authority is adored by both fans and the media. If England have a bad day, their spin doctors invariably send out Swanny, the tweeting, guitar-playing, natural-born entertainer, to pacify the press. So expectations over Swann’s autobiography are unusually high. From the very beginning, when he apologises for the awful punning title (The Breaks Are Off) and generously introduces his ghostwriter, Swann does his best to live down the deserved reputation most sporting autobiographies have for self-serving drabness. His tale is full of honesty, bonhomie – and boozing. Anyone playing a drinking game by matching Swanny’s sessions as they read would soon pass out. When he won his first professional contract with Northamptonshire, Swann spent most of his time, and money, on the pull in a fake Ralph Lauren shirt (“you could always tell because the man on a horse looked more like a monkey on an armadillo,” he writes). “It was undoubtedly a drinking culture in the old days,” says Swann fondly. “I remember playing a match at Hampshire. They were known as Happy Hampshire, because their motto was ‘Win or lose, we booze’. It was obviously tongue-in-cheek but there was a bar next to the car park. [Former Hampshire players] Robin Smith and Chris Smith and Adi Aymes would be there, and you’d end up having six, seven pints just chatting about cricket. It wasn’t getting lashed and going out for a kebab, it was just talking about the game, staggering back to the hotel, coming back in the morning, playing and doing it all over again.” Over the course of his career Swann has watched cricket become far more professional: central contracts for England players and demands for higher levels of fitness are “almost trying to take some of the jollity out of the game”. Swann says the fitness coaches have won – the fun has disappeared. “There used to be real camaraderie, drinking with the opposition, on the pull with the opposition,” he says. This year, he played for his current county, Nottinghamshire, against Sussex. Their second team also stayed at their Brighton hotel. Swann was bemused to see the youngsters meekly drifting around the city in their tracksuits. “As an 18-year-old off the leash in Brighton, I’d have had my best trapping gear on. I’d have been in Walkabout from midday onwards trying to sleep with any bird I could get my hands on. And these guys, completely unaware of how stupid they all looked in Notts cricket club tracksuits, walking around the middle of Brighton!” Many fans, of course, would argue it is no coincidence that the upsurge in England’s – and Swann’s – fortunes has come about by calling time on cricket’s drinking culture. “Thank God Jagerbombs had not been invented pre-2000 because they would have ended a few careers,” writes Swann. He cut back as he got older because the hangovers got so much worse. Married with a young son, Wilf, Swann may have cut out regular boozing but it is unlikely that footballers would get away with knocking back so much – or admitting it. In the build-up to England’s crucial first Test against Australia last year Swann and his fellow bowlers got on the Jagerbombs in Brisbane. “After falling over several times I left the youngsters to it,” he writes. And he still hits the town when England win. “Even though every health pundit will say it’s a terrible thing, I’d rather wait till we win and then binge-drink,” he says breezily. “I’d rather get drunk with my mates, celebrate a good victory and sleep off the horrendous hangover the next day. That’s a much better way of doing it.” Family tensions Swann grew up in a family of cricket obsessives. His older brother, Alec , followed in the footsteps of their geordie dad, a brilliant batsman. Swann was forced to bowl because he was the youngest. “You do whatever you’re told, you’re the skivvy, aren’t you?” he says. Competing with Alec, Swann swiftly became far better than boys his own age and the brothers were soon representing Northamptonshire and young England, playing alongside and against Andrew Flintoff and Phil Neville, the Everton footballer. Great things were expected of the Swann brothers. Swann’s dad, a maths teacher, is a forbidding and pessimistic authority figure in the book. Swann says he always thought his dad was “superman” but clashed with him over cricket. While Alec dutifully followed their father’s example and meticulously compiled slow hundreds, Swann loved thrashing the ball around. “I remember Dad saying to me once: ‘No one will ever remember a flashy 30.’ I thought: ‘Bollocks they will.’ I almost went out to prove him wrong. I wish he’d said, ‘No one will remember a boring 200,’” says Swann. “It’s very strange how I always grew up idolising my dad but not listening to a bloody word he said.” There is a Cain and Abel moment in Swann’s story when, playing for Northamptonshire, he caught out his brother, who had moved to Lancashire. Swann’s family were distraught. “I remember Grandma being devastated when I caught my brother out. She phoned up and said: ‘What did you bloody do that for?’” Earlier in the season, he had also bowled Alec out. “I looked over at my mum and dad and my dad had his head buried in his hands. He didn’t talk to me for a couple of days. He couldn’t understand it.” Did that reaction hurt Swann? “No, it didn’t. I just thought, well, he’ll come round, it’s me dad,” he says. That catch, however, had far-reaching consequences. It proved to be Alec’s last professional innings as, aged just 27, his Lancashire contract was not renewed. Alec is now cricket correspondent for the Northants Evening Telegraph. Swann is “perplexed” that his brother’s career finished prematurely because he’s “a much better batter” than “half the guys still playing county cricket”. Swann, however, flourished without the attentions – or obvious approval – of his dad. “My brother is very similar to my dad in many ways. Because he’s an opening bat and my dad’s an opening bat, maybe my dad just lived his career through my brother a little bit. I was a spinner who was a bit of a free spirit and went off and did what I wanted,” he says. “By forever disagreeing with any theory he had, maybe subconsciously I was trying to give myself a less-pressured environment. Maybe it was just my way of dealing with the pressure because there was that expectation on me and my brother.” Youthful underachievement Swann looked destined to become a flamboyant underachiever after his disastrous first England tour. His mischievous sense of fun, and anti-authoritarian streak, led to rifts with former England coach Duncan Fletcher and Rod Marsh, the Australian cricket legend and another influential coach. (Adopting an Australian accent and calling Marsh an “ignorant cunt” for being oblivious to Robbie Williams was not the wisest joke.) Aged 20, Swann was taken on England’s tour of South Africa in 1999/2000 and was shocked by the “very selfish, cliquey” dressing room. His fellow spinner Phil Tufnell was one of several “very fragile characters” who lacked confidence in their ability, writes Swann. Bowlers Andy Caddick and Darren Gough apparently hated each other and the latter “sucker punched” Swann when he stood at the urinals; Swann claims in the book to have done nothing to provoke him. Swann hardly played and had a dismal tour. The only thing he learned was the power of getting the crowd on his side after he was struck by a boerewors , a South African sausage, hurled from a hostile crowd. He took a bite, threw it back and was then cheered every time he touched the ball. But he was not picked again for England for seven years. Fletcher told him he admired his attitude but Swann subsequently learned that Fletcher had privately given him a “dreadful” tour report. Swann says he bears no grudge and is forthright about his own shortcomings: “I was an idiot basically.” He had been given £30,000 to tour. “I couldn’t wait to spend it on as much Jack Daniels as I could throw down my throat. There wasn’t an ounce of maturity in me then.” Swann recently captained England’s exceedingly youthful Twenty20 team. He hopes the dressing room is more welcoming these days. He believes it is easier for this young generation because, unlike when he was England’s lone youngster, a bunch have been picked at the same time. “Without sounding a bit wet and trendy-lefty, when they go back to the hotel they can discuss their day, and actually share the experience and grow from it. That does sound hippyish. All I did, I went back to my own room and thought, ‘What time do the air hostesses get down to the bar?’ I had no one to talk to.” England’s one-day series in India starts tomorrow, October 14. Swann is full of praise today for captain Andrew Strauss (“probably the most natural born leader I’ve played under”), coach Andy Flower (“a brilliant coach”) and teammates such as his good friend Jimmy Anderson. But he attributes England’s success not to greater professionalism or adopting Australian-style mental resilience, but simply to “this big circle” whereby good generations rise and fall. In the early 1980s it was the West Indies, then Australia had the best players in the world, the likes of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Ricky Ponting. “They all finished at the same time so as Australia were looking for new guys to fill their shoes, England snuck up behind them, and all of a sudden we had two or three of the best players in the world,” he says. “I feel privileged and lucky to be in the team I am. The trick is to try to dominate world cricket for a decade like Australia did and that’s going to be hard.” Swann wants to keep playing cricket for as long as he can – and is desperate to trade some of his flashy 30s for an England century. With his good humour and huge Twitter following, a career as a cricket pundit surely beckons. Surprisingly, Swann worries it would not suit him. “I’d be a maverick commentator. I’d not turn up for three days and be pictured on a yacht with Jenson Button in Monaco when I should be in Napier for a Test match. I don’t know what the future holds but if I had the choice it would be a primetime Saturday show with Jimmy Anderson as my straight sidekick. But he needs to work on his delivery. He’s been appalling recently.” Graeme Swann Cricket Patrick Barkham guardian.co.uk