The Fag End Of The Cricket Season, Lord’s, 23 to 25 September 2019

Monday 23 September 2019

Whose idea was it to play first class cricket in England beyond the autumn equinox this year? I suppose it is inevitable as the authorities try to fit more and more short form cricket into the central chunk of the summer that the first class season will increasingly bookend those tournaments.

Anyway, this round of matches was entirely played after the equinox (which, for astronomical geeks, took place about 40 minutes before play was supposed to start on 23 September). The Lord’s match for this fag end of the season was Middlesex v Derbyshire.

I had work commitments for much of the day but wanted to show the Lord’s pavilion to a couple of Z/Yen’s keen youngsters; Morgan and Sean (the latter being Michael’s nephew).

I got to Lord’s in time to see a little bit of cricket before the fellas arrived, but by the time they got to Lord’s it was raining. Still, I could show them around the pavilion and could also show them some live sport in the form of real tennis, where a couple of my pals were battling out a tournament match.

After my guests departed, I joined the Seaxe Club evening for a quick drink before going home.

Tuesday 24 September 2019

I had pre-arranged to spend the day with DJ at Lord’s, but the weather forecast looked so shocking we expected no play, so we scaled back our arrangement to be lunch only. I agreed to play tennis as a late substitute at 15:00.

The timing worked very well – I was able to get a good chunk of work done before meeting DJ at Lord’s around 12:15 and taking some early lunch and having a good chat with him.

Miraculously, there was a short hiatus in the rain that enabled some 20-25 minutes of play, which we enjoyed in glorious sunshine, before the clouds and rain returned.

I guessed, correctly, that any further breaks in the rain would be too brief to enable play and in any case I think David felt that he had enjoyed the shortened but enjoyable get together and he would return to some work-oriented tasks.

I had a good hour of tennis before learning that stumps had been drawn early which enabled me to shower, change and get to the Middlesex Sponsors party in perfect time.

Very few sponsors turned up as the weather had been so poor, thus, unusually, I chatted with several players, as they outnumbered the sponsors. I spoke with Ethan Bamber for the first time who didn’t seem to realise how impressive he now looks. I hope my pep talk helped; he did go on to take his maiden first class fivefer in this match so i don’t think it hindered.

I also told Ethan that I had seen his dad play Horatio opposite Daniel Day-Lewis’s Hamlet, which seemed to amuse him:

There was plenty to drink (I was quite moderate) and enormous quantities of cheese (I tried to help out). I also won half a case of wine…again! Half of that half case went in “informal storage charges” to the tennis pros after the party.

Strangely, the rain had completely relented by evening so I decided to partially walk off my wine and cheese.

Wednesday 25 September 2019

I had my prearranged tennis game scheduled for the morning (a couple of hours in the end) and Richard Goatley wanted to see me at noon, so the morning went that way.

I had a good game of tennis and missed little cricket before lunch.

The weather improved (against the forecast) lunchtime, so I grabbed a sandwich and some reading matter, taking up position on the Members’ Bar balcony – a place that is normally hard to get to but which was almost deserted at the fag end of the season.

There I watched, read and chatted for a couple of hours, before deciding that I really should go home and get my work done. What a great idea to have cricket this late in the season when the weather smiles like this:

The match ended, thusly, while I was beavering away in the city the next day – click here.

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