Michael Mainelli and I had formed a tradition – I think 2006 was the third instance of it – that I would take Michael as my guest to a day of county cricket early season, before the crowds get larger and (most importantly) before the days get hotter.
Some like it hot, but Michael REALLY doesn’t like it hot.
So, Day 3, Friday, first county championship match of the season seemed just the ticket. In many ways it was. Middlesex v Kent. Good fixture. April.
The match was well advanced by the start of Day 3 but not too well advanced.
The cricinfo scorecard and resources for this match can be found here.
As tradition would have it…this sort of thing IS a tradition by the third time, possibly even by the second time…we watched the first session from the pavilion. Then, at lunch, as tradition would also have it, we perambulated on the outfield (smaller crowd than Middlesex’s glorious September 2016 match depicted above), then retired to Harry Morgan to grab some takeaway New York deli-style food – probably a chopped liver sandwich to share plus a salt beef sandwich each plus some pickled cucumbers.
We took our feast back to Lord’s in time to munch, drink some fine red wine and watch the second session of cricket from the Compton Stand.
The Compton Stand offered a rather binary choice; absolutely exposed to the elements in the upper tier, or caged in away from the elements in the lower tier. As I write in September 2019, that stand is being demolished, together with its smaller twin, the Edrich, to be replaced by more modern facilities.
Anyway, in April we opted for the upper and the sunshine while we ate our hot food, rather than the wind-tunnel cooling effect of the shady, cagey lower tier.
We finished our grub around about the time that Nick Compton’s fine innings for Middlesex entered the nervous nineties. I explained to Michael that the lad had been on Middlesex’s books for some years but this was, hopefully, to be his breakthrough season. He had just scored a big hundred in a University warm-up match but this might be his first County Championship hundred.
Shouldn’t we move now to a shady spot? Perhaps the pavilion again or the Warner?
I asked Michael, noticing a few beads of sweat and a slight reddening of the face. It was proper sunshine that day and by mid afternoon it was really quite warm.
Let’s wait and see Compton get his hundred. We should see Compton get his first hundred from the Compton Stand,
Michael replied; a cricket aficionado in the making.
We could go down to the lower tier and get some shade…that’s still the Compton Stand…
I suggested.
No, said Michael, we shouldn’t move. He’s in the nineties.
Now anyone who knows Michael surely knows that he is one of the least superstitious people you are ever likely to meet. He’s logical. He’s rational.
But cricket seems to get all of us…yes, even Michael, with quirky superstitions. Perhaps all sport does this to some extent, but cricket has superstition in spades.
And of course Michael had enough exposure to cricket through our charity matches and stuff to really understand that a century is a big achievement and a maiden century a really big thing…
…Nick Compton also knew the importance of making a ton, of course…
…so Nick’s nervous 90s went on for rather a long time…it seemed like a very, very long time…
…while Michael got hotter and hotter; ruddier and ruddier. I asked him a couple more times if he wanted to move, but Michael was glued to the cricket and absolutely intent on not jinxing Nick Compton’s century quest.
Within moments of Nick achieving his hundred, Michael was up and we were away in the direction of the shade. I think we went back to the pavilion for the rest of that very pleasant spring day.
Here’s that cricinfo scorecard and resources link again.
