England v Australia, World Cup Round Robin Match, Lord’s, 25 June 2019

**SPOILER ALERT** This piece does not end well if you are an England cricket fan.

The day seemed to start well enough. OK, our cab seemed to take an age to get to us, but basically we got through security at Lord’s and to our seats with a good 10 minutes to spare – enough time to “enjoy” the reverence of the national anthems and stuff.

Daisy was trigger happy at first with her iPhone camera…

…but soon tired of doing that.

Daisy had many bugbears about today, most of which I shared. The first was the high volume music whenever a boundary was scored. Irritating not least because the Aussies were batting and scoring boundaries.

But her main bugbear was the fact that the scoreboards were showing advertising messages for the vast majority of the time; just occasionally showing the score and/or a replay. Indeed, sometimes even the replays were cut off at the vital moment to return to some banal advertising message.

That beer ad was one of the less banal messages – some were simply the names of firms we had never heard of; we couldn’t even work out what they might do for a living.

Then even louder noise for drinks intervals, injury breaks and/or when a wicket fell. The cricket bat-shaped electric guitar is amusing at first but after a while the riffs are simply ear-drum piercing.

Worse, the cameras zooming around the crowd as a proxy for yet more advertising – such as the cab-firm turned food delivery company giving away a hamper of food to someone in the crowd who waves appropriately.

Worst of all, the utterly vapid on-ground commentators-come-crowd-chatters trying to describe the match position and/or ask people in the crowd what they think.

Daisy described the inane chatter as unbelievably amateurish and intrusive to the cricket. The nadir was a vacuous conversation about a crowd-member’s loud shirt which had to be cut off in mid stream because the bowler was about to deliver the ball.

We walked several circuits on which, as usual, we ran into a great many people we know. That’s what happens when doing the circuit at Lord’s.

I saw several of my real tennis pals and one or two other folk I know from outside cricket/Lord’s.

Madz Prangley (well known in various guises to several cricket web sites, someone who is oft-seen at Lord’s) told me off for ignoring her Facebook friend request some time ago. That might have had something to do with the fact that I didn’t, until today, know her real name. The matter has already been corrected.

Daisy took a shine to the look of the Harris Garden set up for corporate hospitality:

The stewards politely explained that it was for invited guests only.

Daisy tried to explain that we ARE Mr & Mrs Harris, so the place, basically, is our garden.

We had a splendid lunch anyway, despite being turned down ever so gently by the Harris Garden steward. Daisy had made some smoked salmon and prawn sandwiches (that’s hedging your bets, isn’t it?) as the centrepiece. We also had a nice drop of Gewurtztraminer to wash that down.

I did one circuit on my own, during which I ran into Alan Curtis who said he was desperately looking for someone…but apparently not for me. That’s OK, Alan. Really, that’s OK. I hope you found someone.

But by the time I was circuiting solo and running into Alan, it was clear that England were coming second in this match.

Charley The Gent sent me an e-mail message to inform me that Essex had beaten Somerset. I hesitate to use the term bragging, as Chas would not approve of that term, but the e-mail read…

Great win for Essex over current leaders – Somerset!

…before setting out the summary final score of the match. As it happens, the gentleman sitting next to us in the Mound Stand was an Essex fan who was delighted with the news, despite England’s travails. He and I then discussed Essex, outground cricket and matters of that kind for a while.

Chas then said he had turned off the TV as he couldn’t bear to look any more. Daisy told me to instruct Charley not to be a wuss and to keep the faith. Chas promised to try.

But in the end – once England were 8 down – even Daisy and I couldn’t keep the faith, so we nipped out through the East Gate and ordered our cab before the throng might make such cab-ordering an impossibility.

Our driver, Alex, turned out to be a local lad full of good recommendations for restaurants around Ealing, which helped lift our rather diminished spirits.

Just in case anyone reading this missed my Mock-Jacobean lament for the 400th anniversary of my old school the other week – explained here, below is a video of a suitably sedate performance that sums up our mood at the end of the day:

My riffs are well subtle compared with those of the cricket bat guitarist, eh?

Daisy is now done with World Cup live action and says she is delighted to be following the rest of the World Cup from the comfort and relative peace of her own home. I understand her point. The “thumping bollocks” atmosphere of a T20 match can be a bit much for three-to-fours hours of a T20. For the eight-plus hours of an ODI it is insanely too much.

Me? I’ll be doing it all again at Lord’s in 10 days time when Pakistan take on Bangladesh. And unless England pull up their socks big time, that match might be the one that decides who takes that final semi-final spot and eliminates England.

Oh dear.