"Why am I doing this?"
That was the question Chris Woakes asked himself this week when, in a pre-season friendly played in the bitter cold, a Durham University student named Ollie Morgan gave him the charge. "He was on 48 - he played really well - and came down and whacked me over extra cover for a couple-of-bounces four," Woakes says. "I was like, 'Just walk away. What are you doing?'"
It is a legitimate question: Woakes retired from international cricket last year, turned 37 this month, and could happily have spent this month earning far more in the Pakistan Super League than he will playing in the County Championship. But his loyalty to Warwickshire, coupled with a masochistic streak, means that he is gearing up to open the bowling against Surrey next week.
"I've had to get my head around what it is and how it differs," he says, after what he estimates to be his first full pre-season in 14 years. "Not having that carrot anymore of trying to perform to play at the higher level is different. But I'm excited by what I can hopefully give to the group.
"I had offers to go and do some franchise stuff and obviously it's financially rewarding. But spending that amount of time away from the family now doesn't quite work as well. I've done my fair share of that, and it takes its toll.
"I've always felt like when I retired, or when I finished with England, I was always hoping to come back and give Warwickshire a season or two, and however long I could physically do it, I was keen to do it. There's a part of me that felt that if I didn't do it, I'd regret not coming back and spending that time.
"The other thing is I've just got this… Jimmy [Anderson] has said this a little bit, about love for the grind. I don't mean the county grind - I mean just the fact that fast bowling hurts when you wake up and you have to do it again. The sort of feelings that red-ball success gives you, you don't get doing anything else.
"I love white-ball cricket - I find it exciting - but it doesn't give you the same sort of feeling that you get from winning a four-day match and going down to the wire, and having to go through some horrific places to get there… I've been at Warwickshire since I was 11, and I'd have found it hard to just walk away and not come back and give something back, I suppose."
Woakes played a handful of T20s over the winter, but next week's Championship opener will be his first first-class match since the end of his Test career. His left shoulder, which he dislocated diving to stop a ball on the boundary, is "as good as it's going to be" but by no means perfect, and he admits he is unlikely to throw himself around in the field this season.
The injury effectively brought Woakes' international career to an end. He made his comeback - for MI Emirates in the ILT20 - on the opening day of the second Ashes Test in Brisbane, but his body was not yet ready for a bigger workload than four overs: "Test match cricket was miles off at that point. I wouldn't have been fit. It wasn't a chance."
He has no gripes about the manner that his England exit was handled - he announced his retirement soon after Rob Key said he "not in our plans at the minute, at all" - and now sees his exit as a point of pride, walking out to bat with his arm in a sling. "I probably wouldn't have chosen to go out that way, but I've come to peace with the fact that actually, it was quite fitting."
Woakes had rated his chances of travelling to Australia as "50/50" before the injury, and admits he felt some frustration watching from afar. "I waited 15 years for a wicket in Australia to do a bit," he says, laughing. "You almost feel like Australia saw us coming, don't you think? We were talking 'pace' for three years, and then [they] just produce green ones."
It leaves Woakes convinced that there is room in the side for "an English-type seamer" and he suggests Sam Cook and Ollie Robinson as two standout candidates. "In England, we've very good at always looking at away Test matches, rather than looking at home. But you've still got to win your home games, right? There's no issues with having a horses-for-courses approach.
"Robbo is still up there with the best in the country. I don't know what's going on there, but if he starts well and he looks fit, the beef between himself and the hierarchy could be sorted out and he's still one of our best bowlers in the country. There's no doubt about that.
"Sam Cook has been probably a bit harshly treated," Woakes adds, after Cook's one-off appearance against Zimbabwe last summer. "It's hard to judge someone on one Test match, playing on a flat one at Trent Bridge… It's his Test debut, there's nerves. You can't really judge someone on that. I've seen enough of him to know that he's a very good bowler, very accurate, and if you do that for long periods of time, you'll take wickets."
Woakes will be surrounded by familiar faces at the start of the season: left-armer Keith Barker and bowling coach Graeme Welch are both back from Hampshire, and Ian Westwood - like Barker, a team-mate from Warwickshire's 2012 Championship win - is in his second full season as head coach. Their target is another title - though Woakes knows it is a stiff ask.
"The game doesn't stand still for anyone. Do you know what I mean? You've still got to turn up and perform. Just because you're Chris Woakes or you're Keith Barker, it doesn't mean that you rock up and take five-fors and win games of cricket. You've still got to put in the hard yards."
And if he didn't know it already, this week's friendly was a timely reminder.