Ed O'Brien on BBC Radio 5 Live

Ed O'Brien phones in to Not Just Cricket, Greg James's show on BBC Radio 5 Live, to talk to the England players Graeme Swann and James Anderson. He is 43, he says, and has never seen an England side like this one; Swann replies that the guitarist in his covers band won't let them play Radiohead. Asked whether they ever pull out a bat and ball on tour for a quick game of cricket, he says that on R.E.M.'s world tour in 1995, with Radiohead opening in huge sports arenas with no seats on the floor, Radiohead had great games there during the day, with their sound engineer Jim very keen, and they kept it up before and after gigs, though not lately, because they haven't been playing arenas. Cricket was his first love before music. About 12 years ago, in the band's first summer off, he turned out for a village side outside Reading and found he had forgotten how hard the ball is, with a guitarist's hands to protect. Talking schedules with Anderson, he says Radiohead toured for about six years without stopping, until their management came on the road with them and saw the burnout.

The cricket bat the band gave him for his 30th birthday never made it home from America. At the airport a security guard asked him to hand over the paddle under his arm. “That's not a paddle sir, that's finest English willow,” O'Brien told him, and the guard took it anyway.