Farewell my elitist friend. Our secret love affair is tabloid fodder. Freddie adorns the cover of Hello while KP resists scores of teenage girls admiring his biceps as Sourav tests the limits of ‘player power’ against a backdrop of burning Chappell effigies.

Test cricket now has everything to rival the glitz and gutter of football and its vogue is gutting me like a freshly served salmon.

No longer will I be able to exclusively bore the arse of my office colleagues with my intricate analysis of statistics and nuances. I will soon be surrounded by a plethora of experts who will love and appreciate every twist and turn of every session of every test match. No longer will I be a soldier in the elite army of supporters that recognise and appreciate the significance of a cut cheek, a dropped catch or a substitute fielder. All the rugby-ites and footie-heads will now know how this beautiful game connives to suck us in from our armchairs and spit us out exhausted but sated.

All will now analyse whether a finger scratch of the chin is a swipe at a thirsty mossie or a visual display of the perplexing dilemma to swap third slip for third man. I’m suitably prepared for my wife to suddenly yell – “But Billy, it pitched outside leg” defying the 12 years of unsuccessful attempts by me to stop her from asking “who’s winning” after 5 minutes of day one of the test.

It will of course become so very crystal clear for her and all to see.

County matches, Pura Cup and State Shield games will all be sold out before the respective domestic seasons start. The only way in through the gates will be by having an uncle that has access to a season ticket by way of a sordid relationship with the trophy wife of a major sponsor.

And so I feel robbed of the monopolistic rights of reward for my long suffering allegiance. The newly converted fans have gate crashed my party at three in the morning and stolen the last bottle of Johnny Walker as they whisk away the solitary pretty girl in their Mark3 Cortina.

It’s just not cricket!