Early in the northern spring, Ryan Campbell, a former swashbuckling West Australian batsman who now coaches the Netherlands’ national cricket team, took a flight with his wife and two young kids from his home near Amsterdam to England, for a holiday with the in-laws.

The next day, he was standing with his daughter in a playground in Stoke-on-Trent, when he suddenly felt an urgent need to lie down. He did so, then got up and apologised to everyone around him, then lay down again.