For Graeme Swann, the wait is over. In the city where Mike Gatting succumbed to a dodgy prawn, one should never be too presumptuous, but barring an overnight calamity Swann will be the proud owner today of a blue cloth cap, three lions and a crown neatly stitched in, almost a decade after he was first picked for an England tour.

Swann’s selection, along with that of Matt Prior, answers the two puzzles that were facing Kevin Pietersen during the build-up to the first Test match. Both are commonsense answers — Prior because he has had more cricket recently and Swann because, now that the rains have lifted, the likelihood is for normal Indian conditions: heat, runs, spin and more spin.

For Swann, the change in the weather on the eve of the match was a godsend. “I had my fingers crossed that I would be in, but I saw the rain on Tuesday morning and worried that it might count against two spinners,” he said. “Then I got in the nets and it turned square, so I hoped they would ignore the fact that last time there was a Test here about four million runs were scored.”

There have been disappointments since Swann’s initial tour under Duncan Fletcher and Nasser Hussain to South Africa, not the least of which has been to see Monty Panesar, whom Swann kept out of the team at Northamptonshire, leapfrog ahead of him and cement his place as England’s first-choice spin bowler. At home, England rarely play two spinners, but tours to the sub-continent are more frequent now than in the past, something that gives a one-day international spinner, as Swann had become, hope.

“I’d written Test cricket off about 8½ years ago after my first tour,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d get back in, so it’s great. I didn’t expect to play for England in any form of the game again.

“It was great when I was called up for the one-dayers and it was frustrating not to play in a Test in Sri Lanka last year. But I knew if I had a half-decent year I’d get to come out here, where I have a good chance of getting a game. I’ve worked very hard since moving to Notts to get back to this level.”

Looking back at his first experience as an England player has been instructive. “I wasn’t good enough at the time,” Swann said. “I was 19 and it doesn’t help when you miss the team bus when you’ve got a guy who’s strict on discipline in charge. I made a rod for my own back and I’ve got no complaints. I use two alarm clocks now to make sure I wake up in time.”

Swann is one of England’s more outwardly confident characters and he did not sound daunted by the prospect of making his debut against batsmen who are breast-fed on spin bowling. “If anything it would be more daunting making my debut back home because it doesn’t suit finger spin as much as here, where spinners tend to have more say in the game,” he said. “It’s red hot, which suits me because I’m not a seam bowler. I’m just glad to be playing here rather than on a belter at the Oval.”

Although Swann left Northamptonshire for Nottinghamshire just as Panesar started to progress, he is delighted to be sharing duties with his former county team-mate. “We didn’t play that often together at Northants because I kept him out of the team as I could bat,” Swann said. “He was only a youngster then and, while it was obvious he had the talent to bowl, he didn’t have a clue about thinking about cricket. Or life in general, to be honest. But he can actually think about the game now, while life in general is still a bit of a mystery to him. Monty’s a big kid at heart. He’s a belter. I love him to bits.”

Swann is a popular character, too, always cracking jokes and doing a fine line in impersonations. “I tend to play with a smile on my face and a light heart,” he said. “There are times when I get angry, when people nick it and don’t walk, but I’ll soak it up and enjoy it.”

It is often said of sportsmen that those who appear outwardly cocky are often masking deep insecurities, but when asked, Swann was confident enough to brush off the inquiry with good humour. “Every man who seems confident on the outside is s****ing like a big dog inside,” he said.