Rob Key: Even the most experienced cricketers will worry they have forgotten how to play

But now, Twenty20 cricket has helped with that. These guys have played at, say, Northampton in front of no one and then at a rammed Oval on a Friday night — or indeed a Test at Cape Town at the start of this year — so know both sides of the coin. They will be fine.

The cricket itself will be a step into the unknown for both teams. I don’t think the lack of saliva on the ball will be a problem, because the Dukes will still move. The pitches should be truer, because there has barely been a ball bowled by July.

The players will surely all be undercooked, though. By this time of year,

the bowlers have normally got through hundreds of overs and the batsmen are mentally shot or on cloud nine. This time, it’s different. They have barely any cricket under their belts, and no warm-up match can ever come close to the intensity of the first game of the season, at which point you take it up a notch. So, it will take a lot out of them and their bodies will find it hard.

As a player, no matter how experienced you are, before the first game of any season — let alone one you’ve had to wait three extra months for, just sat around at home — you wonder whether this is the year you completely forget how to play. You are so desperate for a strong start, because you think that if you fail, you are chasing the game. You always feel like you are chasing if you fail in that first innings of a season.

Much of the focus is on how Ben Stokes will go as England captain. I think it must be bizarre for Stokes, because he is almost judged on how guys went years ago — Ian Botham in the early Eighties and Andrew Flintoff in the 2000s. This is unfair. On the Ashes tour that Flintoff lost 5-0, it would not have made any difference who was captain — Michael Vaughan, Andrew Strauss, whoever — the two sides were unevenly matched.

I think Stokes will be absolutely fine, because generally the more responsibility he has, the better he has played. He is only in the role for one match before Joe Root comes back in.

England have a tricky decision over which fast bowlers to pick. From nowhere, they suddenly have all sorts of options. There are some serious bowlers not even in the squad. In England, I would start with Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad, Jofra Archer and Stokes, with Mark Wood in reserve.

Archer and Wood are the future, especially if you want to win in Australia, and arguably England’s two most exciting bowlers. But if Anderson and Broad are fit, available and in your best side, you should not worry about being too cute and trying to prolong their future. Get as much out of two great bowlers as you possibly can now, rather than looking too far down the line.

It is almost time to get the game on, at which point it will be nice to think about something other than lockdown and all its worries.