A Day Of World Cup Cricket, Pakistan v Bangladesh, At Lord’s, 5 July 2019

I wanted to see a world cup match from the wonderful vantage point of the Lord’s pavilion. I figured that this particular match would be a decent opportunity so to do and I was right; I scored a pavilion ticket on application.

Of course, the only thing about international matches and the pavilion is that only members are allowed. Strictly no guests. That’s why most of us choose not to go to the pavilion on a major match day even when we can – because we normally choose to go with partners, friends etc.

By coincidence, I had a conversation about this matter on the Tuesday, with John Thirlwell, with whom I play real tennis, normally at Lord’s but on this occasion, while we are in exile for the world cup, at Queen’s.

John had similarly, uncharacteristically, bagged a pavilion place for the Pakistan v Bangladesh game. We hatched a plan to watch the match together.

This proved to be a great plan from my point of view, as John:

• was getting to the ground really early for a breakfast, so could bag some especially good middle balcony seats for us both;
• has “inherited” a brace of MCC cushions, to soften the worst effects of pavilion bench rump ire, as reported in articles passim, not least here:

The rump ire strikes back – Middlesex v Durham match report

John kindly sent me a message describing the location of the seats and the precise look of the bagsying materials. I got to said seats about 25 minutes before the start of play – John got back from his breakfast about 5 minutes after I arrived.

I very much enjoyed watching cricket with John, who is knowledgeable about the game and/but wears his cricket knowledge lightly. We also chatted a bit with the gentleman next to us, who is a member who now lives in New Zealand but is, coincidentally, like us, a real tennis tragic. Not much chance of feeding his real tennis addiction in Wellington. He was a little peeved that he couldn’t feed that addiction at Lord’s on this visit – he usually does when he comes over for cricket.

Despite the cushions, I have learnt my lesson and made sure to take several walks rather than sit through the whole match. In any case, those walks were a real treat because there was such a festival atmosphere around the ground. Noisy, but in a very good-spirited way, with the Pakistan and Bangladesh fans competing to make celebratory noise.

In particular, on my walk during the innings break, the heave of people taking advantage of the many Asian food stands in the food village and picnicing on the lawns was a wonderful mixture of sights, sounds and smells. I could only try to capture some of the sights:

During the Bangladesh innings, John came for one of the ground circuits with me, which I think he also enjoyed. On our way out of the pavilion, we spied a sample of a new-style pavilion bench made of a padded material that ought to reduce or even eliminate the worst excesses of rump ire.

Change…don’t want it…

…said John. I chimed in…

what’ll we do for aggravation if we have comfortable seats? The grumpy MCC member will lose his entire raison d’être on a comfy chair.

They’ll need to do a heck of a lot of persuading to get that idea through the members at a general meeting.

More seriously, I was very critical of the extraneous marketing drivel and noise in the England v Australia match – click here or below:

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

I’m pleased to report that the ICC seemed to have ironed out some of the worst excesses for this match, although I still found many of the marketing messages inappropriate and unhelpful within the ground, however much it might make sense for those advertisers to have their colours shown on the TV screens around the world. But at least we could see the score on the scoreboards most of the time during this match.

I was also really impressed by the MCC’s decision to allow 250 schoolkids to witness this match from the pavilion, as it had been under-subscribed. This was a wonderful opportunity for those schools and seemed to motivate MCC staff and members – at least certainly those I spoke to about it.

Here is a link to the Cricinfo resource for this match.

It wasn’t the best or most exciting match I have ever seen, but it was a great advert for the game and for the ability of a place like Lord’s to stage a glorious day out for all manner of people who don’t normally get a chance to enjoy the Lord’s experience. I thought it was a great success and was so glad to have been there on this day.

Thanks once again, John, for your company, the choice of seats and the pain-diminishing cushions.