First the ECB were going to get rid of 40-over cricket next summer, then they brought it back. Then they realised perhaps they should keep the 50-over tournament instead and ditch 40 overs after all. Then the counties moaned and it was kept. It was the biggest will-they-won’t-they farce since Ross and Rachel from Friends. I’m sure I even heard Giles Clarke mutter a “we were on a break” excuse for the debacle.

You’d have thought that after all of that fuss the ECB 40-over tournament (no longer the Pro40 because that was scrapped, remember) would have a fitting finale. Well, the final is at Lord’s at least. But it is also scheduled for September 18.

It will be cloudy, cold, probably rain and no one will care by then. Everyone will be talking about Manchester football derbies, Christmas decorations will be in the shops and people sitting outside pubs will only be there for a smoke and not a suntan.

Yes, it’s a busy summer but with one fewer domestic competition next season, surely it wasn’t beyond the imagination of the ECB to give it a July or August final?

Not all is lost, however: this being the ECB, they’ll probably change their minds.

Daniel Brigham is assistant editor of The Wisden Cricketer.