One of the beauties of the summer game, as any enthusiast will be able to vouchsafe abundantly, is the way in which the central drama of the contest itself is enriched by rare incidents, statistical milestones or just oddities, and things of no relevance to cricket at all but of a strange fascination nonetheless. Here is a story of endless cricketing depth:
When two spectators standing on the boundary at a cricket match saw an object hurtling down from the sky, their first instinct might have been to applaud.
However Jan Marszel, 51, and Richard Haynes, 52, were not witnessing a six, but an extremely rare meteor strike.
The rock, a few inches long and believed to be up to 4.5 billion years old, broke in two when it hit the ground in front of them close to the pitch.
It raises many questions. Has a batsman ever been dismissed by a meteorite? When last, if ever, was someone at cricket struck (as Mr Marszel was) by a moving object that was 4.5 billion years old? By comparison, what indeed is the oldest projectile ever to have been used in a game of cricket? These are things for you to think about.