At about the time on Friday evening when England's finest were marmalising New Zealand in a form of cricket once confined to the village green, things at Godshill were not so sanguine.

Alan Cousins was shovelling cow dung from the outfield and scouring his back catalogue of last-resort players. Later, while Kevin Pietersen was holding court about the merits of becoming one-match dollar-millionaires thanks to the distorting largesse of a Texan financier, Cousins hit on his solution. A call to Devon and Ken Balfour was rerouted from his holiday.

True, Ken was 67 and still running in a new knee, but he hobbled back gamely to don his aged whites in the familiar wooden shack without lights or hot water. This, after all, was a significant game in Godshill's pursuit of St Mary Bourne in Regional Division Two (North West) of the Hampshire League.

Four years ago, The Times visited Godshill at the start of a series on the state of village cricket. After the craziest of weeks in the cash-drunk world of Twenty20, it seemed apposite to discover if this most rustic, New Forest idyll remained a sanctuary.

Superficially, nothing had changed. Clank over the cattle grid, admire the thatch and the quaintly preserved bus shelter, stop off at the Fighting Cocks with its signs threatening parents of “bothersome” children with the village stocks. Godshill's ground, bound by nature and the rulebook of the Forestry Commission, is also unaltered, right down to the ponies and cows that need shooing before play begins.

There was a void, though, through the death, at 87, of Reg Horsburgh, whose wartime vision and subsequent energy created this improbably stunning ground. Two years ago, Reg's ashes, along with a mountain of flowers, were scattered on the square.

Daisy, his widow, still brings home-made cakes and sandwiches from her cottage in the village, just as she has done at every home game for 43 years. But it is Cousins, wedded to Horsburgh's daughter and his cricket club, who now bears the mantle of provider and protector.

As captain, groundsman, fixtures secretary, opening batsman and wicketkeeper, Cousins is a life member of that dwindling band of stalwarts keeping the village game alive against the increasing calls of garden centres, shopping malls, reality TV and sloth. “But I've given up being treasurer,” he said with a certain pride.

That duty now resides with Kathy Lowe, the scorer. Her husband, Andy, a Methodist minister, has a bad back, one of several reasons why Cousins had only nine players on the eve of the game with Wherwell. It brought to mind the 1990s TV adaptation of Outside Edge, in which a wonderfully unctuous Robert Daws played Roger Dervish, captain of Brent Park CC. “How many discs have you actually slipped?” he demanded of a scratched player. “Just one? That's not too bad, is it?” As his team were further depleted, Dervish complains to his long-suffering, tea-making wife: “Nigel has broken his leg, selfish bugger. I'm a man short. All he's done is lost a leg.”

Cousins brings more humanity to the unending crisis. “Every week, it's a struggle to get 11 out,” he said. “We only have 15 playing members and they are hardly ever all available. But I've been captain for 15 years now and no one else wants to do it.”

To the surprise of all, Cousins went on a cycling holiday recently. “Sunday to Sunday, so I only missed one league game ... the only one we've lost,” he pointed out. “But there were a couple of issues. The lads couldn't work the mower. And the ponies got on to the square and left hoof prints.” Not the sort of problems often encountered in the increasingly dizzy world of Pietersen and pals.

Twenty20, of course, is nothing new. Godshill have what may kindly be called a mature team and many of them recall playing a 20-overs evening league in the 1980s. “It used to get a bit dark up here for the second innings, though,” Alan Pollard recalled. “What with all the bushes, and no sightscreens.”

Wherwell, meanwhile, are complaining that watching Twenty20 has harmed their batsmen. “Too many silly shots, all season,” one muttered. But they muster 147 before Cousins, who bats as if determined never to leave his beloved square, steers Godshill to a fifth win in six and a league position that would be even better had he not incurred a ten-point penalty by forgetting to pay the subscriptions.

Unabashed, he leads both teams down to the Fighting Cocks for a debate that flickers across the Stanford millions before settling on earthier money. “Fiver a head for subs and teas,” he said. “And another for the beer.”