The following article appeared in the programme for Racing Club Warwick v Coalville Town on 8th October 2005.
Friday July 22nd dawned and the seemingly never-ending summer-long football drought was in full swing. One of our suppliers at work had casually asked me the week before if I was interested in cricket. Cricket? Well it’s not my usual cup of tea but, not having witnessed any live competitive sporting action since May, I was getting desperate. Then the magical question: “Do you fancy joining us at Lord’s for the Test Match?” Do bears crap in the woods? Is the pope a German? Even somebody with only a passing interest in watching the leather on willow couldn’t fail to be excited by the prospect of visiting one of the most hallowed sporting arenas in the world to witness one of the oldest sporting rivalries!
I have attended Test Matches before. As a boy in Yorkshire, I used to go to Headingley in the summer holidays when Geoffrey Boycott, Beefy Botham and Bob Willis were in their pomp and I also saw Australia beat England at Lords on their last visit to these shores. Last summer I enjoyed a day at Edgbaston where I saw Freddy Flintoff swat boundaries like flies and witnessed an innings from, probably the best batsman in the world, Brian Lara. This Test Series however was something else. Anticipated like no other, partly due to the relatively late start for the five match series, and partly due to England’s fabulous winning run over the previous 14 tests, the First Test at Lord’s had been hyped up to fever pitch. The much anticipated series had got off to a truly monumental start the day before with Australia having been bowled out for 190 and England collapsing to 92 for 7 by close of play. What a day’s play! We wondered whether the match might be over on the second day and we’d be there to see it!
The trip down to St John’s Wood was a concern due to the London Underground network having been closed for much of the day before due to various security alerts. On the morning of the second day another incident had seen a suspect shot dead. Fare evasion? Well I was taking no chances and bought a tube ticket! Emerging from St John’s Wood station I was greeted by literally dozens of cockney spiv ticket touts. “Buy any spares”. I didn’t see anybody selling what was the hottest ticket in town.
I met up with my hosts in the hospitality area and passed up the opportunity of breakfast in favour of seeing the opening over of the day. Pieterson was at bat and he was soon attacking the bowling with a couple on monster sixes before being spectacularly caught on the boundary. England were quickly all out for 155, although that was much better than we had anticipated at the beginning of the day. Now could we bowl the convicts out again?
As a location, Lords is a true theatre of sport. Seemingly hemmed in on all sides by modern high-rise buildings, the greenness of the cricket pitch very looks out of place compared to the surroundings. The venue that is home to the MCC is actually the third Lord’s. This particular one has been in use since 1813 and that immediately makes it older than the oldest continuously used football ground in the world by a few decades. The Lord’s architecture is a strange mixture: on one side is the famous old pavilion that is home to the Long Room and the members, many of whom appear to be as old as the building itself; opposite is the NatWest media centre which is about as space age as you can get. The media centre has a wonderful nickname: it’s known locally as Cherie Blair’s mouth – if you’ve seen it you’ll know why! Behind the scenes at Lords on a Test Match day it is a veritable hive of enterprise. They must employ hundreds if not thousands on the catering and security side. Corporate hospitality seems to be massive. Cricket presents a much better showcase for such largesse than football does. For a start you can entertain your clients with breakfast, lunch and tea and the action is spread out to such an extent that nobody worries about missing bits and pieces. I wouldn’t dream of missing any part of a football match but somehow it doesn’t seem to matter here as we miss the first few overs after lunch whilst tucking into our third course – there’s a TV handy anyway! Frankly the view on the TV is miles better than the side-on view that we have watching from the Grand Stand – no chance of picking out an LBW and not much chance of even seeing the ball in flight once it leaves the bowler’s hand when it’s being bowled at 85-90 mph!
The Aussie innings builds steadily throughout the afternoon as England’s bowlers made hard work of it. They’re not doing themselves any favours in the field either as a couple of chances go down. They say that catches win matches don’t they? Close of play arrives at 6PM, seven and a half hours after the first ball of the day with Australia well and truly in command, having a lead in excess of 250 and wickets in hand. The writing is on the wall as far as the result is concerned but, as is usually the way with Test cricket, there is no result on the second day, nor in this case on the third. The antipodean’s traditional Lord’s Test win was not secured until the rain swept fourth day. Ah well….there’s always the Rugby….oh bugger!
Keep the faith!
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