Last summer, his father (who is the same man I refer to as “my partner”, before you think I sleep around a lot, which I certainly would do, if only the opportunity ever presented itself) took him to a cricket roadshow in Regent’s Park where he entered an England and Wales Cricket Board/BBC Radio competition. This involved commentating on video footage of one over from the 1999 cricket World Cup And then we got a call from the BBC just before Christmas. He’d won! Great, I said, do you want to know where to send the T-shirt? No, they said, the prize is a family trip to see the fourth and fifth Tests in Melbourne and Sydney Well, I was dumbstruck, obviously. Certainly, too dumbstruck to ask if I might exchange it for a shopping trip to New York, say.

For one.Seriously, though, what a prize! Perhaps my son has the lucky gene I never had. Indeed, on first hearing the news, I immediately entered him for an Evening Standard “win a £10,000 shopping spree in John Lewis by 10 pm tonight” competition. I sat by the phone until 11pm, just in case they were running late but, no, nothing. I love my son and am very proud of him – the competition, which toured the country as part of the roadshow, was open to all 17-year-olds and under and he’s only 10 – but I still feel he let me down quite badly here. OK, £10,000 to spend at John Lewis isn’t the same as two Test matches, I know, but what, frankly, are we ultimately going to have to show for two Test matches? Not a top-of-the-range dishwasher, that’s for sure.As you’ve probably gathered, my son is a keen player. Plays for North London CC as opening batsman, which I think means he’s the batsman who opens He looks wonderfully cute in his little helmet.

I have, of course, watched him play matches, but I can sit there all day and still not know who has won at the end. I have to sort of eavesdrop on the other parents for clues, or hunt subtly for information “Didn’t North London play well,” I will say. “No, they lost,” another mother – the sort who writes her appointments in The Cricket Scorer’s Diary – will say. “But didn’t they play well,” I will persist, hoping to hang on to some dignity, “even though they lost?” The only exciting thing I can recall – aside from the holly tape incident – is when he mistakenly wore boxer shorts under his flannels and his box kept shooting out of one or other of his trouser legs mid-run. Would it be the right trouser leg this time? Or the left? The tension kept me absorbed in the game for.. well.. let me see… almost four minutes.Yes, as you’ve also probably gathered, I’m rubbish when it comes to sport.