How long will they keep turning up?

That the idea for this particular column, an ode to the joys of county cricket, would be hijacked by 355 unanswered runs, should be of no surprise considering KP's gift for timing. However, until he bats his way back into this piece a few paragraphs on, I shall try and focus.

I'm originally from Leicester, and the last time I watched Leicestershire play was quite possibly when I was on the pitch myself for the Under-19s. That I managed to pull on that wool sweater with its embroidered fox emblem was a boyhood dream that had begun the day I walked though the gates at Grace Road as a spectator, aged 11.

School summer holidays of the 1980s followed the flux of the weather. Rain in the morning, which was set for the day, meant indoor games of Test Match on the kitchen table. If we got some rays in the afternoon I'd be out with my cricket-mad friends, playing with a tennis ball, down the side of my house. If the sun was set to shine all day, I'd be on the bus into town, sandwiches packed in an old Walls Ice Cream box, and the LCCC membership book, on loan from the local Working Men's Club, tucked in my pocket.

We liked to get to the ground early, while the mowers were still trimming the outfield, or the groundsman was crouched painting the chalk-white crease onto the green baize of the square. By lingering near the nets and pestering the players padded up and waiting for a throwdown, we'd occasionally get to bowl a few balls at the pros. I particularly remember a session at Middlesex opener Wilf Slack, tearing in as fast as I could. These quiet, golden mornings, settling down, knowing we had an entire day of unbroken play to watch beneath a blue sky exist now in a halcyon memory.

Weekdays the concrete benches and plastic seats would rarely be more than dotted with persevering fans - even though the Leicestershire team of that era possessed England stars David Gower, Phil DeFreitas, Jonathan Agnew and Chris Lewis. And often the same fans, day in day out. Sitting in the same seats and eating the same sandwiches - or chocolate, like the elderly West Indian gent who would habitually eat a stick of KitKat at the fall of a wicket.

A quarter of a century on from the last time I'd sat and watched my home team over the course of a few days, rather than simply observing a raced-through limited-overs blast, I walked through the John Edrich gate at The Oval, distracted before I'd even taken my seat.

It was a sunny if cool Tuesday afternoon, Leicestershire were batting, a couple of wickets down and fighting to save the game. This was a contest, a crucial point in the battle for a county to regain their pride - two seasons without a win is a dismal record. As much as I tried to simply sit down and take in the atmosphere, the feeling was of arriving late to a party. Not the guest who gets there when everyone is merry and dancing on the table - that had happened the evening before when KP twirled his bat past 300 runs. No, I felt more like the man arriving to a pile of dirty dishes and stub-filled ashtrays.

I hadn't seen any of the triple-century, and neither had the hapless Leicestershire fielders considering KP was dropped five times. And although I got to the ground only a couple of hours after the No. 11, Matt Dunn, curtailed KP's seemingly unstoppable march towards Brian Lara's 501, the innings was already ancient history.

For this rest of the afternoon, as Leicestershire battled in vain, I spent most of the time watching Kevin. Shades on, cap pulled down and shirt collar up, he was as emotionally guarded as a poker shark in Vegas. Whatever machinations whirred beyond the peak of his cap and the mirrored lenses, they were put aside for attention to fielding. He was ostracised - by himself, Andrew Strauss, Colin Graves' broken promises, or Piers Morgan's acidic cheerleading, opinions differ - from the England team despite his wizardly abilities, and I was compelled to scrutinise his movements across the Oval outfield.

So there we were, up close and personal to a cricket star. Despite fearing that my piece about county cricket would be hijacked by the hitting of KP or the press conference of Strauss, perhaps it still is about county cricket. Sitting in the plastic seats, mostly clustered in the band of late sunshine skimming the OCS Stand, the die-hard fans unwrapped cling-film-covered sandwiches and opened flasks of tea. There were men, mostly, some who clutched filled-in scorecards, others, bearded like birdwatchers with their binoculars dangling around their necks, or pressed to their eyes, for a zoom in on the action, whether it be ball or player - the stalwart fans I'd have seen at Grace Road in the '80s, still at the game now, as they ever were.

But will it be forever?

This era, the fans of my generation and beyond, yes. Those of us old enough to have seen Botham at Headingley in '81, or West Indies in their swaggering and beautiful pomp, we love the game. Our relationship with cricket can be compared to a dogged marriage. Strauss had talked about "trust" in the morning, and KP would write about "deceit" the next day. The KP affair is a wound that may heal, but the memory will remain, like scar tissue. I just hope that the young fans, those who weren't watching at The Oval this week, can persevere.