Man, it was great batting weather. And my new bat was winking at me. But back in the Spring – back in the middle of Lockdown, back when Wednesday was my only day off and when 9 holes at Cambridge Lakes was my only opportunity for some gentle sporting competition – the idea of getting to play cricket this year felt absurd. So perhaps my cameo appearance in a bank holiday friendly at Elmdon was apt. I wasn’t supposed to be playing. I’d gone to watch. There had been talk of making it a 12-a-side game, but my toe was wrecked. Thanks, but no thanks.

Ten years previously, I’d been opening the batting for Camden First team, league winners for the first time in the history of Cambridge’s oldest cricket club. A lot has changed since then, but the Thirds remain – albeit they are now the First XI. The only XI, to be fair. It might seem strange, but a team of middle-aged rank amateurs was the most sustainable part of Camden when it all went tits up just four short years after that league triumph. And while the waistlines and, in Redders’ case, the list of excuses may have expanded, the essence of Camden – of the team my dad helped nurture into existence – has endured.

So it was very Camden to be 40-odd for 6, batting first. Sod it, I might as well have a bat. At number 9. And in black tracky-b’s and using borrowed kit. And you know what? It was fun. Whisper it, but sweeping a hapless young seamer on the second bounce on a pudding of a pitch might have been as fun as facing up to Cambridgeshire’s finest overseas pros. And I didn’t have to field. I could get used to this. If, as I’ve long suspected, there is no more accurate barometer of my state of mind as my batting average, then in the middle of a global pandemic I’ll take 27 not out.

I thought that would be that. A brief, absurd cameo. But there was more to come. Unburdened of having to work Sundays, there was suddenly the opportunity to play in a friendly at picturesque Chippenham. Nice deck, quick outfield, lovely place to play, and a perfect weather forecast. Why not? Might even wear whites this time.

You never know what standard of bowling will be on show in friendlies, but I was beginning to regret asking to bat 3. No matter, Redders soon fell to a smart caught and bowled for a rapid, boundary-heavy 62. Friendly game, friendly bowling. One poor old boy, I’d happily take his bowling as my luxury item on Desert Island Discs. But man, it was fun. There’s not much to rival the feeling of timing a cricket ball.

Never mind the game petered out into a draw. Never mind that Winter Is Coming. Forget all that. That barometer reads 83 not out. Roll on 2021.