Antonia Forest fans

I've read it as suggesting simply that it was an important failure for Lois, something for which she couldn't let herself off the hook, and one of the events that permanently alters your sense of yourself. That passage, if I remmber it rightly - I've no idea where my childhood copy of Cricket Term, and used to doze off over the lengthy game description anyway, having less than no comprehension of the rules - is chilling because AF is so good on the experience of realising at the onset of adulthood that you are ultimately alone in the world, and that failure is not only possible, but quite likely.