For so many club cricket badgers like me, Saturday is summer... so what happens now?

NICK FRIEND: At times like this, there are far more important things than cricket. Sport is, at best, a very distant second. But I guess the point of this particular column is to offer a reminder of what you mean to your club and what it means to you

First up, a confession. When, in the middle of February, my editor asks me for any holidays that I might have planned through the summer months, my eyes turn solely to Saturdays.

I know that I’m not alone in that. Like many others, I’m heavily involved at my cricket club, an organisation – as the majority in amateur sport are – run by volunteers.

Only, I’ve never seen it as volunteering – I feel like that formalises something that, for me, is simply a way of life, a part of my existence that I would hate to do without.

I sit on a committee of 16 members, many of whom do more than me and have done for longer; I look after the social side of things and help out with player recruitment and publicity. But we’re all the same in our undying commitment to a place that feels like home. And furthermore, we’re all the same in approaching the coming weeks and months in a state of some uncertainty.

Objectively, there is no confusion. The Middlesex County Cricket League has provided regular updates ever since the ECB first advised that all recreational cricket be suspended until further notice.

On Tuesday, it was announced that the first three games – the campaign was due to begin on May 9 – had been cancelled and would be treated as matches abandoned rather than to be rearranged further into September or, as has been mooted on the county circuit, as late as October.

The expectation in these unprecedented times has to be that this is the first of several inevitable such notices. Faced with a global pandemic about which we are learning every day, it feels wrong to plan for anything else.

Rather, the doubt lies elsewhere. For many – and this extends well beyond the committee and club badgers, Saturday is summer. Whatever the level, there are those who spend their Sundays nursing hangovers, bruises and tired legs, analysing in their minds the events of the previous day, and then using the following five looking forward to the next instalment. We curse it as a perennial frustration, forever asking ourselves why we bother. But we return every week and every year. A game missed is a memory lost, and that threat is too much for many of us to risk, and so we keep coming back. Rolling into the car park on a sun-soaked weekend morning is entering a happy place.

^{The All Stars initiative and the launch of the new Dynamos programme have both been suspended indefinitely}

The moment the early nights draw in, this is what you’re waiting for – the sun reflecting off the newly-polished sightscreens, the glorious aroma of freshly cut grass, mowed to within an inch of its life. This year is different. The ECB guidance came before Ground Force Day so, at many clubs, walls will remain in need of a paint, dressing rooms will feel cold and spookily empty, benches will need reassembling.

Some will be fortunate enough to have a groundsman able and willing to use these times of quarantine and self-isolation to go over the square and, where possible, the outfield – if the winter rain has not left it sodden.

So many plans gone to waste – for the moment, anyway: Easter camps, caterers, overseas players. What of the next generation and the continuation of the All Stars programme and the launch of its postcursor Dynamo scheme, both now suspended indefinitely?

In a recent statement, the ECB provided some guarded optimism, explaining: “We know that cricket can have a huge part to play in supporting physical and mental wellbeing of children around the country and we are working hard to find a solution which involves running courses later in the summer.”

In my own case, the club is a home from home – not quite walkable, but a short drive away. It is hard to pluck a number out of the sky, but I’d reckon that between April and September, it amounts to 80 per cent of my social existence: training twice a week, a post-training drink twice a week, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, the occasional Sunday coaching stint and then the regular phone calls. It is an annual routine – not just for me, but for thousands around the country.

At times like this, though, there are far more important things than cricket. Sport is, at best, a very distant second – behind the privilege of health and livelihoods.

But I guess the point of this column – and most won’t be as personal or club-based as this – is to offer a reminder of what you mean to your club and what it means to you. Don’t be a stranger – at least in a virtual sense. Don’t just forget about it because there’s a pane of glass between ourselves and the outside. Talk to your teammates and drop the occasional line in the direction of the guys that keep the place going, if only to retain some semblance of normality.

The ECB have done some work already to allay any immediate fears. The deadlines for any repayments due to the England and Wales Cricket Trust’s interest-free loan scheme have been suspended until May 2021, while the £61m emergency package put together by the national governing body includes £20m for the recreational game.

^{It will be an uncertain summer for club cricketers everywhere}

The fact remains, however, that the coming months will be challenging. How clubs to tackle annual subs will, I’m sure, vary nationwide. Along with match fees, bar takings, junior memberships and venue hire, they are among the staples. I’m not sure there is a right or wrong answer.

What we are witnessing at the moment, in the wider coronavirus context, is a reminder of how relatively insignificant our game truly is.

Yet, even so, think of the groundsman still out on his mower, the umpire whose playing days are long gone but whose weekly officiating is their way of staying in touch, the volunteers who have spent the off-season planning to provide you with something bigger and better than before. Give them a ring.

We have set up a weekly video call for anyone and everyone – we’re calling it a ‘virtual pub night’ and there's a quiz on Wednesday nights via Zoom, our new best mate. It’s partly with our mental health in mind, but also partly so we have a regular laugh organised – I know many of us will need one when May’s second Saturday comes around.

Some of the counties have done similar with their longstanding members; Surrey’s Rikki Clarke and George Garrett of Warwickshire both tweeted of the appreciation they felt from those they contacted. When I spoke to Essex’s Adam Wheater on Thursday, he was doing the same, working his way through numbers given to him by the club and chatting to members over the phone.

On the other side of all this – whenever that may be, amateur sports clubs will have an almighty role to play – their sense of community might just represent more than ever before. But before then, they need you.