Playing for England on an Ashes tour in Australia is widely regarded as the high point of a cricketer’s career.

Youngsters – and a few oldsters too – get excited about the idea of opening the batting or bowling in front of 100,000 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Boxing Day.

So Jamie Overton has not made the decision to “step back from red ball cricket” lightly, given the ECB maintain he had an excellent chance of making England’s Ashes tour squad. The 31-year-old will instead concentrate on playing in T20 tournaments, including the Big Bash League in Australia this winter for Adelaide Strikers and, doubtless, other franchise competitions around the world.

One newspaper columnist, who seems to have been warning about the end of civilisation since it started, described it as a “two-fingered salute to Test cricket”.

But it isn’t.

Overton is not the first and certainly won’t be the last cricketer who decides to specialise in the shortest form of the game. A number of other England players may well follow the same path in the near future.

The Surrey fast bowler has his own strong reasons for taking that path. He admitted that his unexpected return to Test cricket, against India at the Kia Oval earlier this season, had taken him more than a week from which to recover.

That’s not altogether surprising given how little first-class cricket he has played this year – just two County Championship outings for Surrey – having spent the opening stages of the season at the Indian Premier League. It was hardly ideal preparation, particularly as England were a bowler down from early on at The Oval after Chris Woakes dislocated a shoulder.

But Overton has a history of stress fractures, including two in the past four years, and at 31 his body’s own natural elasticity is beginning to fade. He knows that another long break from the game, besides the toll it takes on anyone’s spirits, would be a major hit to his career.

When Derek Underwood joined the “rebels” who signed for Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket in the mid-1970s, he was asked how he could possibly turn his back on playing for England and, possibly, Kent. Underwood, who had always seemed the epitome of an establishment man, replied that he had a living to make and that his wages – they received the paltry sum of £210 per Test back then and county salaries were below the national average – could not sustain his family.

Overton has not made the same claim and nor would he be able to justify it now that players are far better paid. But as a fast bowler, a role which takes a huge physical toll on its practitioners, he has the same responsibility to his own family and future.

He has said he may return to the first-class game at some stage in the future, although that looks unlikely. Once the body gets used to short, sharp bursts rather than long days in the field – particularly moving into the 30s – it's desperately hard to retrain it.

When Overton is watching England do battle in Melbourne and Sydney during the coming winter, he may feel a pang or two of regret.

But that doesn’t mean he made the wrong decision.

By Richard Spiller