The clock ticks along to 1pm and it's time to walk out to the middle. Over the boundary rope and on to the freshly cut outfield towards the crease. The opposition throw the match ball between themselves, hungry for your wicket. The opening bowler marks out his run up and places the small white disc on the ground; indicating the point he begins his run in towards you.
"Middle stump please!" I bellow to the man in white, stood at the other end of the pitch.
"That's middle", he responds courteously. "The bowler is right arm over". Knowledge I am already aware of, as this 10-year rivalry is about to have a new chapter written into it's pages. I carve out a line with my boot spikes, from middle peg, over the batting crease and position myself on it and look up. The bowler, over 6 feet tall and built like an oak tree trunk stands waiting, the hard new cherry in his hands, fingers caressing the seam. I look around the field; four men stand behind me, mittens poised waiting for a nick. The others stare in with the devils in their eyes, waiting for their moment of glory.
"Play." The one word that signals the start of something magical or something torturous. Who knows what today will bring.
The bowler runs in as I watch the ball intently. Stood stock still until he draws his arm back. Years of practice and habitual repitition draws my bat up with him and bang... The ball hits the middle of the bat followed by a roar of, "No!" just in case the ball going back to the bowler means the only friend I have out there with me decides it's the signal to run.
The game begins...
Cricket is a sport that I was never truly exposed to as a child. We were much more a football family, my focus on goalkeeping and Luton Town, but it was the 2005 Ashes series that ignited an untouched flame inside me that has burnt - sometimes wildly and sometimes barely - for the past 15 years.
Cricket is an infuriating sport. Up there with golf, sometimes you wonder why on Earth you spend so many hours playing it, wondering whether today will be the day you find the middle of the bat you spent hundreds of pounds on, or whether you find the gaps in the field. Even today, I struggle to find the words that adequately describe the addiction to it all.
It's not the "standing around in a field" angle that makes me think, or "chasing after a small red ball" either, but instead the anticipation. The anticipation that today, you could feel indestructible followed, sometimes, by the realisation that you are not.
Cricket is the only team sport that is fiercely individual. You play in a team with ten others but whether you have bat in hand, or are running into bowl, it's all down to you. One day, you can score a hundred runs and be the cream of the crop. The next, you can miss a slow ball and be clean bowled for 0. There is no other sport where you can go from hero to zero and back to hero so frequently.
It is also a dangerous sport. It is often labelled as "boring" and "uneventful", but there are moments out on the field where you marvel at batsmen avoiding what is a cricket ball essentially with the hardness of concrete.
You see, cricket is 90% in the head. You can have the best technique, the best kit, playing on the best grounds but if you can't ignore everything else that's going on around you and focus on that small, hard red ball coming at you, you're toast.
...
I stopped writing this post at that point. You see, for the past couple of years, I've considered giving up playing. My reflexes aren't the same; my eyesight is going, and I can't seem to find the ability I once had, making cricket more annoying than it really should be. Today, I played in a knockout semi-final; a big game by all accounts, and I barely slept the night before.
I've played 220 games for my club - over 15 seasons - and I can't remember a game that I was so nervous for than this one, except maybe Finals Day in 2013. I am experienced now, but today felt like the last chance. I'm not even 30 yet, but today just felt like it was make or break.
I only scored 15. The pitch was a farm, (literally) and batting was almost impossible. While one ball took off, the next one rolled before the next one jagged sideways off the seam. It was very tricky.
In making that "good" 15, I found the middle of the bat more often than not. However, one shot, an on-drive straight back past the bowler with perfect technique and timing flicked a switch in my brain.
I can still do this. I do have more to give.
Cricket is a sport than can muddle your brain. Even the professionals have a higher rate of mental health issues because of the cocoon one finds themselves in when things aren't going your way. I don't quite know how to explain it. It's as if you know you can do it, but you can't. Making you question whether you can do it at all.
We lost today; part and parcel of any sport, meaning it's the last game of our truncated season. Looking at the scorecard, a 15 next to my name is certainly nothing to write home about. But that single shot - a shot that almost all pundits agree is technically one of the most difficult shots in the game - has suddenly made me realise I can offer something, and has committed me to a 16th year of this crazy, infuriating, mind-boggling, brilliant sport that we call cricket.
Just one shot. Fine margins...
