This was the first of several occasions I treated The Duchess, Daisy’s (Janie’s) mum, as well as Janie, to a day at the Lord’s test match.
My diary tells me that I booked The Tavern Concourse for this day, which suggests to me that this match – basically part of a warm up mini series ahead of that summer’s Ashes – had not sold well to the members, so an opportunity arose for the hoi polloi (as I then was – not even a member of Middlesex yet) to snap up some decent seats. Ironically, these days, as a member, I tend to choose to sit in that “despised” members area precisely because it tends populated by cricket loving members & friends, many of whom are also my tennis pals.
Returning to May 2001, I no doubt had made The Duchess envious with talk of my new-found test cricket pals and exploits the previous season…
…which she had enjoyed, with me and Janie from the other side of Marylebone at the end of the Lord’s test:
Anyway, I scored three tickets for the Friday of the England v Pakistan test of 2001, little knowing that Day Two would in effect become Day One, as the first day was a washout.
In 2001, washouts at Lord’s could still easily spill into the second day, as this was before the laying of the wonderful modern drainage system, which I think was done some 18 months later.
But we were in luck. The weather improved, Lord’s properly dried out, and we got a full day of cricket.
Phew.
Because it would have been my fault had we not got much or any cricket.
Not only that, but we saw England do rather well, albeit going slowly, losing only four wickets in the day. We saw Michael Atherton, Marcus Trescothick, Nasser Hussein, Michael Vaughan and Graham Thorpe all score runs. Thorpe’s innings was the highlight. We even saw Ryan Sidebottom score four as nightwatchman.
The Duchess no doubt told us many times over that Howard had been a MEMBER of the MCC at Lord’s and that she would have hung out with him the pavilion if only they had allowed in women. Instead, she hung out with him in the Tavern at Lord’s – this stand where we are sitting used to be the actual front of The Tavern you know…and of course she would always be with Howard in the pavilion at the Oval, where they would frequently have a drink with people like Dennis [Compton], Ted [Dexter], Peter [May], Ken [Barrington], Tony [Locke], Jim [Laker], The Bedser Twins, Keith [Miller], Ray [Lindwall], Neil [Harvey] and of course dear, dear Richie…
…I hope I’m not boring you all, dear readers.
Janie’s LA Cabs receipt from that day is, for reasons unknown, still in her diary. £25 to pick up The Duchess, then pick up us, and take us all to Lord’s.
Here’s the scorecard from that match, which England won convincingly.