Cricket is my salvation during lockdown’s darkest moments

Banishing the envy of warmer climes from his mind, Will Gore takes the greatest comfort that any English cricket fan can be given

India’s free-wheeling Rishabh Pant takes on Australia in Brisbane (Getty)

There is perhaps no greater moment for the parents of a new baby than the first night of unbroken sleep. You wake in a muddle, wondering how it can possibly be light, then panicking that your child must be sick, or worse. Then, when you see them still sleeping, you realise with joy that life might be possible again.

We were pretty lucky with our firstborn, after some tough early months. Our second was well into his second year before he slept all the way through. But once he got it, all was well. Middle of the night wails – or sudden appearances in our bed – were consigned to history. Not every parent gets away so lightly.

It was a surprise then, when my son – now five – arrived in our room at 4.20am last Monday, apparently determined to settle down between us for some more kip. For about three minutes his unexpected presence seemed terribly sweet. Then I realised that he was fast asleep and that I was wide awake; and without wriggle room.

I soon gave it up as a bad job and decided to try his bed, climbing over turtles, various birds, a squirrel and two otters (“Otter one” and “Otter two”), then causing a small dog (known as “Little Hog”) to rattle, before finally settling down beneath a seagull covered duvet. It was a quarter to five and my eyes burnt holes in the ceiling, above which Tristan lay peacefully.

I had a pang of jealousy there in the dark, resentful of people on the other side of the world enjoying the game in the flesh

Then I remembered that it was the final day of the last test match in the Australia vs India cricket series. I checked my phone, wondering if India could possibly be repeating the heroics of the previous match, in which they had hung on for a draw.

Sure enough, things looked promising. Just three Indian wickets had gone down, and they had fewer than 40 overs to bat through for safety. The lure of live commentary from Down Under was too strong to ignore and I tuned in, tucking my phone under the edge of Tristan’s pillow as voices began to burble.

At first, the strangeness of an Australian commentary team grated. The humour wasn’t quite as compelling as Phil Tufnell’s cheekiness, and the insights weren’t as nuanced as Michael Vaughan’s on Test Match Special. Soon though, I began to revel in the foreignness of it all; in these days when we can barely leave our homes, let alone cross national borders, it was a tantalising taste of another land.

The former Australian players offering their views on the game weren’t convinced that the current Aussie team would be able to force victory, even when Cheteshwar Pujara, the India number three, was out with 18 overs still to go. Yet it still seemed possible that a rash shot or two could bring about a clattering collapse

As time went on though, and India’s scoring rate slowly crept higher, it became plain that not only could the visitors hold on, they might even be able to win the match themselves. Tired but enthralled, I felt that familiar joy that anyone who has listened to overseas Test cricket in the middle of the night will know so well – a peculiar sense that you are part of something bigger than yourself, yet somehow in on a secret that almost nobody else has discovered.

A six by Rishabh Pant, India’s free-wheeling wicketkeeper-batsman, was met with enthusiastic cheering from the Indian fans gathered inside Brisbane’s famous Gabba stadium. The spectators’ applause brought me up short. Those were real shouts of delight from real fans; not the canned nonsense that has replaced the noise of crowds in this country.

I had a pang of jealousy there in the dark, resentful of people on the other side of the world enjoying the game in the flesh. This month has been a trying one already, and I had a sudden longing for everything to be normal again; for talk of tests to invoke only thoughts of cricket, not of coronavirus. If only it were so easy.

Still, I reasoned, take comfort where it is offered. And so, banishing envy to a far corner of my mind, I took the greatest comfort that any English cricket fan can be given, as India inched wondrously to victory and Australia – the old enemy – were consigned to a series defeat that almost nobody had predicted.

Tristan has slept in his own bed in the nights since, and is not a welcome visitor to our room in the early hours. But if he does feel the need for company in the dead of night, he’d better make sure there is a Test match being played somewhere in the world before he opens our door. He might even find me already awake.