People have been saying life will change for us now but me? No chance. I may be a World Cup winner but I will always be the lad who played cricket with his friends and cousins in the park on Stoney Lane in south Birmingham using an old milk crate for stumps.

It did not seem odd to Max that what he had imagined about Stumps was really true, because this was exactly how games you made up worked. Of course they were true. In your mind.