For most of us, freshman week at college requires at least another week (or two) to recover.

But Tammy Beaumont had little time to think in a haze of exhaustion or overwhelming excitement at new-found freedom, as she headed straight from Loughborough to her debut for England in the Caribbean.

Beaumont, now 35 and having just announced his retirement from international cricket after this week’s Test against India, calls his debut a whirlwind.

It is also an apt word to describe a career that has seen her bat in every position from one to 11, become a World Cup winner, Ashes double centurion and now retire on the historic occasion of a first women’s Test at Lord’s starting on Friday.

“It’s been an emotional week since I made the final decision,” Beaumont told BBC Sport.

“At the end of last year’s Over-50 World Cup, some doubts arose. It didn’t necessarily light up when I found out.

“But I had some conversations with Lottie [head coach Charlotte Edwards] “For the last few months about where the team was going and I didn’t really see myself in it, so I made the decision about a week ago to definitely do it.”

It’s also been a career of resilience, although Beaumont jokingly refers to his father’s speech at his wedding in which he used that word in quotes to mean “stubborn.”

After a fluctuating start to international play, it was in 2016 that then-coach Mark Robinson promoted her to fly-half and she never looked back.

A year later, she was player of the tournament and leading run-scorer during England’s 50-over World Cup victory at home.

From there he was one of the first names on the team sheet with his consistency at the top of the order, but another turning point came in 2022 when he was left out of the T20 squad and missed the home Commonwealth Games as a result.

However, earlier this summer, when Edwards left Beaumont out of the one-day international squad against New Zealand, there was a difference.

Stubbornness had no effect.

And last week, when men’s Test captain Ben Stokes announced his retirement, Beaumont found himself making comparisons.

“I think it was the first time I was left off a team and I didn’t have that fire to come back, to prove people wrong one more time and force my way back,” Beaumont said.

“When I heard Ben Stokes talk about ‘going back to the well,’ I don’t think I’ve ever connected more with anyone else.

“I’ve said many times that you get knocked down seven times and you get up eight times. But that moment was like a wake-up call, the moment when I thought I couldn’t do it anymore and I didn’t want to do it.”