Back to the place where nothing really changes at all ...

AND so after an absence that feels much longer than it is I returned to cricket and trains this week.

For two years I have not visited a single cricket ground, which has been a wrench as I have been playing, watching or officiating on them as much as I possibly could ever since I first saw Tony Greig bowing to Vivian Richards on the telly we had back at the farm in the hot summer of 1976.

Not travelling by train has been less of a hardship but this was all for pleasure and my walk to the station was eager. The app on my phone still worked, I bought the ticket as I walked, scanned myself in and was on the station without any complication. It was busier than I expected, people are clearly moving around more than I thought. It felt strange.

The only time I have been with more than four or five people since all this began was at Dad’s funeral, and that was all family. But trains are capacious beasts, and there was plenty of room once we were all on board. I was able to secure the train rider’s dream position – a four-seater all to myself, with a table. Jackpot.

As we rolled along I spotted a few members of the other family that has been such a huge part of my life. The cricket family is a global one, and wherever you go and meet members of it you immediately find a similar welcome, a mutual interest, a shared language. As we got off at Taunton, I could have told you a man or woman who was going the same way as me. There’s a look. As soon as I was on the street I was in conversation with a family member I had never met before. We briefly dealt with which seats we had won in the post-Covid ballot (mine in the alcohol-free area would you believe it), which gate to enter through and before we got to the river we were deep into which England player would make it into a world’s best ever team. “Have a great day,” said the family member I had never met before. “In fact, how could you not.”

And that’s the thing, as once you are there, even rain can’t ruin the feeling of being among those who love what you do. There was no such issue this week. The moment I found my socially-distanced seat, time stood still, not much happened on the pitch, and I became part of the gentle chatter around me. By midday, I had discussed why players are so noisy on the pitch these days, would Gary Sobers have been the player he was in today’s game, and listened to an account of watching Michael Holding bowl like the wind to Geoffrey Boycott. It was all largely pointless, thoroughly enjoyable and very comfortable.

Someone offered me a sandwich, and for a while a ginger cat came and stretched out in the sun next to me. Much has changed at the county ground over the years. The phone box where I got Viv Richard’s autograph behind the old pavilion is gone, as is that pavilion itself with its rickety old cinema seats. Covid precautions mean large sections have been cordoned off, and great floodlight towers glower down on the field of play. But innovation and investment have done nothing to diminish the sense of belonging.

New stands are resplendent with the great names of Somerset past. And, in the seats themselves, many of the faces are different but the crowd is just the same. On the pitch the game was played and to and fro’d through the day as games like this at grounds like this have done many times in the past and will do in the future. It was good to be back at the place where so much has changed, but nothing has really changed at all.