For me a sleepy but significant day’s cricket was enlivened by the Test debut of Ian Blackwell. You see Blackie and I first met over a french fry fight at an eighth birthday party in McDonalds and later went to school together at Brookfield Community School in Chesterfield, a red-brick and pint-of-bitter town in northern England.

Ian Blackwell: a proper local hero © Getty Images

Blackie was a proper local hero. He is still believed to hold the record for the most number of lost balls in a local league game. And although a few years back he moved to Somerset, he still turns out for Chesterfield when he’s not got a county game. He could hit the ball into the stratosphere and was fun to watch. Occasionally we would bump into each other down the ‘Brampton Mile’ (one mile, 24 pubs, not to be tackled in a single evening). When he made his one-day debut for England I wrote a quick postcard and got a nice note back.

When I hear people say that he’s doesn’t spin the ball much, I say to myself indignantly, well, he turned it enough to make me look daft in the nets. Overweight? Rubbish. The lad’s just big boned. Totally irrational but, well, that irrational part is an important part of the appeal of cricket.

Some people think cricket can be enjoyed purely as an art form. Asked who they support, they say “I’m a supporter of cricket.” But if you don’t care who wins, then something important is surely lost, reducing the game to a series of moves, like non-contact martial arts or ballet. And, far as my irrational favouritism stretches, even I’m prepared to admit Blackie would make a hopeless ballet dancer.