Edgworth Tavs B (108–6, 15.3o) bt Edgworth Tavs A (107–4)

I was fielding at short fine-leg as Yox stepped up to bowl the final ball of his spell and the opposition’s innings.

We’d kept them tied down fairly well considering the paucity of fielders, and their score was under a hundred. A decent bit of tweak from our Scouse spinner and we’d be trotting off thinking our chances of a win here looked more than half-decent. Despite the gathering gloom. And the temperate barely above five degrees.

Just one decent ball and they’d been kept down to double figures…

Fielders walking in…

Yox’s arm came over, down the wicked shuffled Ste the batsman and…

Freeze frame.

Rewind a year, even more, to the last time Tavs played a proper match at home against an opponent from outside Edgworth. To the last time the bar had been open and we’d been able to sit on the grass in the summer sun, chatting shit and pausing our lives away from cricket for a few hours to participate in a Twenty20 and try to score some runs or take a catch or claim a wicket.

Rewind even further to the last time our wonderful pavilion had been open and we’d be able to change in those terrific facilities then sit on the balcony and survey the scene, before padding up and trotting down the steps and onto the outfield, pretending we’re Joe Root emerging from that famous tunnel and entering the fearsome Bullring in South Africa.

And think of what has happened in those intervening months. Births and, tragically, deaths. Relationships strained, health at risk, jobs on the line. No visits to see friends or family. Lockdowns and shutdowns, closures and collapses. A time in our lives, in our country’s long and rich history, like never before.

So much has changed, but so much remains the same. The club is still there, the Tavs are still here. The summer’s arriving and it’s time to play cricket.

So much remains the same…

Hodgkiss heroics in the field (what a catch that was!), spin bowling from Will flighted so deftly that batsmen get blinded by the setting sun.

Douggie rolling back the years with pugilistic batting, Toby shattering stumps with beautiful swing bowling.

Cass delivering all sorts from his two overs; a huge wide here, a perfect yorker to bowl Smallwood there.

Keogh barely wincing after getting one in the bollocks, climbing back to his feet to carve the next ball for four.

Rob standing with wicketkeeping pads together to prevent a bye, Kevin running hard between the wickets to pick up a single.

Colin’s sturdy opening batting, Brian with both pads blocking the stumps, Boggy yet again unable to find the middle of his willow. Alan playing on, playing for his new grandchild, Emmett showing that Canadian cricket should fear the standard of the mighty Tavs.

Ewan stumping anything that moves, Westy getting everything behind the ball while fielding in the deep, Smallwood chirping more than the birds nesting in the trees beyond the boundary.

Unfreeze that frame.

Back to Ste’s mighty blow, the last ball of the innings.

It’s said that when you hit a cricket ball properly you barely feel it — it just flies off the bat with a beautiful sound and a freedom and momentum all of its own. That happened here, and everyone fell momentarily silent as it soared, soared through the sky and over the sightscreen. A moment of stillness in the middle of a cricket match, a moment of stillness after a horrendous, crazy, unsettling, upsetting period in all our lives where stillness and serenity barely featured and none of us could pause and catch our breath.

And then the ball crashed into the big tree behind the sightscreen, the sound ricocheting around the cricket ground as though to signify the starter’s gun at the beginning of a running race.

Bang! Season begun, the Tavs are back. And that whole rotten year is behind us with the best still yet to come.

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Highlight of the match: In summer 2015, Ben Stokes took one of the best catches in the history of the Ashes while fielding in the cordon at Trent Bridge. Si, yours is right up there. Bravo.

Lowlight: Tavs wouldn’t be Tavs without a comedy run-out. Bogg and Toby, thanks so much for obliging.

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Best bowling: The stats say Yox was MVP, but Toby’s ball to uproot Yox’s stumps was a thing of absolute beauty. Magic.

Best batting (must retire on 20): Tough one to call this, but when Cass bats like Sir Garfield Sobers there’s only one winner of this accolade.