It is May, 1999. Prince is on the radio telling us how to party, the Australians are the undisputed Lords of cricket, and every second news bulletin is explaining how the Y2K bug is going to end the world. I’m on a coach taking the Tonbridge School 1st XI to Bedford for our annual two-day match. Although we don’t yet know his name, word has reached us of a 14 year old left-hander who has been fast-tracked straight into their 1st XI.

We have a tall, quick opening bowler who has troubled most batsmen we’ve come up against. “Introduce yourself early”, I murmur to him as we watch the youngster walk out to warm up. He does, but the smaller boy isn’t fazed, looks comfortable in fact, and goes on to make a tidy forty. ‘Hmm, going to be a handful for the next few years’, I think.

Later, I hear about his first match of that season. Picked initially to play for the under 14 team, he is promoted at the last minute when the MCC arrive to play against the school and find themselves a man short. So his first match at the school is for the MCC against his own 1st XI. He scores a hundred. They don’t leave him out again.

“What did you do, I asked?” genuinely intrigued.

“Well, I made sure it was a tie, didn’t I” he told me, as if that were in equal parts, obvious and easy.

England have been luckier than we could ever know to have had him for so long. He will be deeply missed in every possible way.