ONE is an irreverent lover of indie rock and Newcastle United FC, who annoyed English cricket’s top brass so much on his first tour with the national team that he wasn’t picked again for eight years.

The other is a venerable old Etonian with the plummiest voice in sports broadcasting. But, as recent listeners to Test Match Special will know, Graeme Swann and Henry Blofeld have plenty more in common than you might imagine.

For a start, they’re both relentless chatterboxes. Interviewing them is really a case of starting the ball rolling and letting nature take its course. So it seems entirely appropriate that the pair should be heading off on tour together with their show Graeme Swann’s Great British Spin Off.

“I’ve got my share of stories from on and off the cricket field” says Swann. “But Henry could read the ingredients off a can of beans and get rapturous applause. I was a huge TMS fan as a child and I always looked forward to whenever he came on. It didn’t really matter what was happening in the cricket, he was just a wonderful man to listen to. He can turn anything into poetry or a limerick or a joke. I’m just grateful that I get the chance to go on tour with him. Although I’m a bit worried about the state we’ll be in on the tour bus!”

So what can we expect? Blofeld was in the commentary box for most of Swann’s compressed but hugely successful international career which encompassed three Ashes victories, triumph in the 2010 T20 World Cup and England’s rise to the top of the international rankings in all three formats. But, while Swann is the focus of the night, Blofeld is too lively and mischievous a presence to stay entirely in the shadows.

“Swanny won’t have it all his own way, I can promise you that!” Blofeld chuckles. “We’re both slightly unexpected and off-the-wall characters so it’s never going to go completely to plan! We’ll make some mistakes but the audience always enjoys mistakes!”

Given their closely connected parallel lives, how do the players and the press relate to each other? And, as a recently retired player who now passes judgement on the triumphs and disasters of some very close friends, has Swann found the transition from poacher to gamekeeper difficult? “You say the odd thing that they don’t like. Alastair Cook disagrees with everything I say and then I always prove to be absolutely correct! But that was the case when we were playing together and I still love him to bits. He sent me a rude message the other day after I said he was rubbish at fielding at short leg. I said it tongue-in-cheek but I think he took it seriously. As a player I never minded criticism unless I felt someone was saying something with an axe to grind. In any case, that might just be the TV and written press. There’s always been laughter in the TMS box.”

Graeme Swann’s Great British Spin Off comes to the Wyvern on October 13. To book go to swindontheatres.co.uk or call 01793 524481.