Graeme Swann buzzing ahead of Test 

If Graeme Swann is at all nervous about the forthcoming Ashes series, he is certainly hiding it well. Less than a week before England and Australia line up at Trent Bridge, Swann sits contentedly in a London office cracking jokes, indulging his characteristically zany flights of fancy, and munching custard creams from a glass jar. In fact, what appears to be preoccupying Swann at the moment is something far more mundane.

"I lost my credit card," he explains. "I went to change my address, because it's still going to my old place, then I opened my wallet and realised my card wasn't there. I'm not the best organised human being. It probably fell out, or something. Maybe I could blame the children. I'll find it in Buzz Lightyear's spaceship or something next week."

Real life is what keeps Swann in the present. "The next few days are family time. Family life and cricket don't mix, so when you're at home I never have the time to think about cricket. The Tuesday night before will be excitement for me. I'll be buzzing around the house. I won't be able to wait until the game gets going." Perhaps this excitement is Swann's way of dealing with the magnitude of the occasion. "Yeah, maybe it's my subconscious way of dealing with it. But you can't really think about cricket when you've got a two?year-old kid throwing Rice Krispies at your face in the morning."

The Ashes draws Swann back to memories of his own childhood. "I can remember 1985. Wayne Phillips square-cutting a ball on to David Gower's ankle that bobbed up to Allan Lamb at short-leg. I was six, I think. That got me into cricket, and then the 1986-87 tour Down Under is when I fell in love with it. We used to have half an hour of highlights on television every night, about midnight. Dad taped it, and we would watch it in the morning, me and my brother, over and over until the video was knackered. Brilliant."

In a way, Swann is lucky to be able to take the field on Wednesday. On Monday he was batting against Essex in a warm-up game at Chelmsford when he was struck on the arm by young left-arm quick Tymal Mills.

At first it was thought Swann's arm might be fractured, but an X-ray revealed only bruising. Swann has occasionally struggled against the quick short ball in the past. Is he worried that Australia's pace battery may have taken note? "I am excellent against the short ball," just the hint of a smirk spreading across his face.

"It is my super-strength. The tail end are going to get bounced anyway, both teams. It's something you don't worry about. I don't really think about batting. When I think about the Ashes, all I think about is my bowling. Batting's just good fun. You go out there and score as many as you can, as quickly as possible, and do it in a bit of a cavalier style."

And yet as blase as Swann sounds, the fact remains that lower-order runs will be one of the key battlegrounds of the series, and one area in which Australia, with the likes of Mitchell Starc and Peter Siddle, could legitimately claim to match England. "Lower order runs are a by?product of success," Swann says. "If you've batted a long time, it's very easy for the lower order to go in and carry on batting.

The crunch time for a lower order is when you're 200 for six or seven. If you can get your team up to 400, that's when you're really flying. Hopefully we won't be in the position to have to do it." Australia's decision to replace coach Micky Arthur with Darren Lehmann has generally been hailed as a positive move, but for Swann it is a decision that will have little relevance.

Shortly after he broke into the England Test team in 2008, Peter Moores was dethroned as coach, to be replaced by Andy Flower. He claims not even to remember when Flower took over. "To be honest, I don't think it really matter who's coaching," he says. "The fact I can't really remember probably answers your question.

As soon as you're on the field, it's down to you to perform." Perhaps the mere act of talking about the Ashes has brought it home. But now, finally, Swann admits to a modicum of trepidation as the big moment approaches.

"The Ashes is massive," he says. "And everyone will obviously be apprehensive as to how they're going to perform. But we're used to playing under that sort of pressure, and I for one love it."