I must preface everything I am about to write with two things. Firstly, I study a humanity – woe betide me, my exam load is not the 20 days back-to-back that many STEM students appear have. Secondly, I am a first year – even more reason that I feel under-qualified to comment here.

Nevertheless, I have nearly completed a rather unique first Cambridge exam term –  balancing revision with playing the biggest university summer sport. So, just how do cricket players manage it?

The Blues cricket season has been one of two halves. We suffered heavy defeats on long away days to Cardiff, Leeds and Loughborough, and on those lengthy coach journeys home the question of why you are putting yourself through this is always on your mind – especially if, as I was at Loughborough, you are an unused substitute! While our away loss to Exeter was mitigated to some extent by a dip in the sea, the six hour trip home with coursework due in two days time and still far from finished was a difficult one to say the least.

“Yes, for the third time this week, I’ll be spending the day standing around in a field”

Cricket, in particular, takes a long time to play. There’s no escaping it – at the very least it is eight hours, and that’s before counting any travel. No matter how much you try to work while the team is batting – in theory, possible for me as a specialist tailender – the revision never quite goes in, and usually ends up being put away within a relatively short period of time. After a match, tiredness sets in and the evening is often lost as well (although maybe that’s just a personal weakness). Add into that college cricket and rowing, and suddenly the time for work shrinks – a lot.

Playing a Blues sport also means committing to miss out on time with friends and social events. It is quite difficult to explain to those who don’t follow cricket the fact that, yes, for the third time this week, I’ll be spending the day standing around in a field and I won’t be around again. Watching C-Sunday via a constant stream of photos and videos on various group chats can get tough. No matter the support of team mates, it can feel lonely being away from friends in college. So when there are days like the Varsity match at Lord’s, it makes all the difference.

I think it is fair to say that Oxford were favourites heading into the match – perhaps they even thought they were going to win comfortably. But sometimes a team has a day out, and everything just comes together – Lord’s was that day.

I had to watch my sister, regrettably playing for Oxford, make a half-century and then take four wickets before our match, so being the better sibling on the day – arguably the most important result – was out of the question before we even began. But that aside, the men’s game itself couldn’t have gone better for the Blues. Having parents and friends come up to London for it was particularly special, and to play at a stadium so steeped in history was, for want of a better word, unreal. Who knew players got their towels supplied to them post game? And the lunch – my word, the lunch. Unbelievable. Possibly the best part of the day.

“Who knew players got their towels supplied to them post game?”

Having beaten Oxford once, it seemed only right to beat them again a week later in our BUCS league at Fenners, although we still have the longer-format Varsities to play, so the dark blues still have the chance to make it 2-2 across our encounters this year. But Lord’s is the only one that really matters, right?

We then beat an Oxford Brookes team who can generously be described as tossers, and all of a sudden the season is looking like a successful one – BUCS Premier Division survival is still dependent on other results going our way, but it seems like we should be staying in university cricket’s top tier again.

When things are going well, exams are irrelevant. Who needs a first anyway? It’s not like first year matters for anything after all. But ask me that same question, midway through the Exeter game, having opened the bowling and been hit for 3 sixes in an over by their opener, and my perspective is completely different. Sport at university level can be all encompassing. Even when in the library, checking how the other teams in our league are doing – especially Oxford – is chief among procrastination methods.

Managing time and stress makes it tough. But sport keeps us going, and winning games with the University, winning Varsity for the University, makes it all worth it.