Of late, I have been immersing myself in writing up the journal and some impression pieces about my visit to Mauritius, which was 40 years ago exactly. Devotees of Ogblog (i.e.subscribers) might well be aware of this; others not so.
Ahead of his latest visit, John Random e-mailed to say several things, including this about one of those journal pieces:
A Jew Hunt in Port Louis reminds me of something not very interesting I must tell you about next Thursday.
I had felt quite frustrated about the above piece since I realised that my mother had not only thrown away my article about the resulting great story I discovered once I hunted down the mystery man in Port Louis, but that she had also thrown away my journal notes for 10 and 11 August 1979, as part of the same inadvertently vandalistic act, in the name of “clearing out rubbish”.
Putting that to one side, John and I had a pleasant lunch and did some more fiddling around with his archive of writings. Less progress this session than the previous session, but the previous session had yielded plenty of unexpectedly retrievable data from his old collection. Actually even this day’s session seems to have yielded more than I thought it would.
Then I raised the matter of John’s “Jew Hunt anecdote”.
Oh, it’s nothing really. It’s just that, 20 or so years ago, Jenny and I went to a Mauritian community event in South-East London. There was a bookstall at that event, where I looked at a book called The Mauritian Shekel. It looked really interesting but in the end I didn’t buy it. Your headline, “A Jew Hunt In Port Louis” reminded me of that book.
I nearly left it at that, but my curiosity had been sparked, so I asked John if he remembered what the book was about.
It was a fascinating true story from the time of the Second World War, about a large ship full of Jewish refugees from Central Europe, who had been turned away in Palestine and who were eventually given refuge on Mauritius…
“Hold on!”, I yelled. “THAT’s the story the mystery Jewish man told me in Port Louis. THAT’s the very story I’m desperately trying to recall. The Mauritian Shekel, did you say?”…
…it might not have been cheap, but it was available as a rare second hand book on Amazon:
So the book is on its way and I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to reconstruct my missing article/story from it.
At about 17:00, John went off in the direction of the Proms while I went off in the direction of Lord’s. I bagsyed some seats for me and Jez Horne in the Warner Stand, then went for a quick meeting with Katie Berry for a briefing on participation cricket in Middlesex.
Jez messaged me to say he thought he was a little delayed but should only miss an over or so. In the end, he arrived just in time for the start of the match.
It was good to catch up with Jez again. I hope we can catch up again when Janie and I are in Hove and he also intends to join the Z/Yen party at the Hampshire game in a couple of week’s time.
This Middlesex v Surrey match always has some real frisson to it, though, being a local derby. More often than not we Middlesex fans end up disappointed at this fixture, but of late Middlesex have been doing better and tonight demonstrated that improvement.
AB deVilliers and Eoin Morgan were scintillating with the bat; Steve Finn magnificent with the ball.
The first Ashes Test, it was. The match started on a Thursday this year (it was a Wednesday start last year), so I put my name down for just the first two days of the test.
On the Wednesday, I went up early so that I might have a two-hour music lesson with Ian Pittaway. I normally have my lessons with him by Skype; just occasionally having a face-to-face lesson.
On Skype, Ian looks like this:
…but this time, in real life, he looked more like this…
…so much so that I thought I’d gone to the wrong door at first.
Anyway, it was a good lesson and I was also able to cement some of the tips and techniques we discussed as I had more time than I find at home, while up at Edgbaston, to practice .
On to the Eaton Hotel, where a late lunchtime snack was to prove a problematic ask, so I wandered off to the local TGIF for a starter, a coffee and some reading.
This year we have been joined by Peter and Matthew – family friends of Nigel and Viv from Australia. Really good company, well-humoured guys, they seemed to slip seamlessly into the somewhat quirky group that is The Heavy Rollers. Only Harish absented himself from the Wednesday evening feast – he was coming up to Edgbaston on the morning of the match.
I arranged to meet the lads at their hotel, the Plough and Harrow, at 9:30 with a view to walking with Peter and Matthew to the ground.
Day One: 1 August 2019
I enjoyed a delicious and efficiently-served breakfast of kippers at The Eaton, then wandered down to the Plough and Harrow to find an irritable table of Rollers and Guest-Rollers awaiting their breakfast. They had been waiting for nigh-on an hour when I arrived.
Slowly and not altogether surely, one-by-one, their breakfasts arrived. Mercifully, Peter and Matthew were among the first to be served,so we were able to skedaddle around five-to ten, arriving at the ground and getting through security just in time to witness the toss.
The others, arriving by car, were also in reasonable time for the cricket though not the toss. We spent a great deal of time wondering how difficult it can possibly be for a hotel kitchen to churn out breakfasts at some sort of reasonable pace.
Jimmy Anderson was not able to do anything at reasonable pace that morning either – after four tidy overs he went off, never to be seen bowling again – at least, never in that match.
The other England bowlers set about their enhanced roles well; at one point having the Aussies 8 down for not much more than 120. Then Smith and Siddle went about staging a match-turning recovery. I blame Charles, who said he likes Siddle because he plays for Essex and that he wanted to see Siddle score a few. Turncoat. (Charley, I mean, not Siddle).
The picnic was a Dot “Mrs Malloy” special, with enough sandwiches to feed a small army and a great deal of non-perishable food which came in very handy on the Friday (and no doubt beyond).
Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub Me, Matthew, Peter, Chas, Nick & Harish
For reasons known only to himself, Nigel stood aside when a kindly bloke behind us offered to take our photo at stumps that day.
Matthew, Peter and I walked back; I parted company with them at St George’s Church to save a bit of time, as we had agreed to all meet in the Plough and Harrow bar for a couple of jars.
Over those jars, it transpired that Peter and his good lady had taken their honeymoon in Vanuatu, so we spent some time swapping Vanuatu trivia stories over drinks, which was better than another hot topic – bemoaning British and Australian politics.
Day Two: Friday 2 August 2019
I enjoyed an English breakfast, efficiently and effectively served, checked out of the The Eaton and walked to the ground alone today. I discovered all of the others in their seats around 10:40. No doubt they had gone down to breakfast in the Plough and Harrow at 6:30 in the morning or some such.
Our seats, directly opposite in The Raglan Stand, offer an excellent view of the shenanigans from an ideal distance. Several strolls all around the ground, including the back of the Hollies, reinforced my view that my ideal spectator experience is the very opposite of the Eric Hollies.
I did offer Peter and Matthew an opportunity to choose their own Ogblog pseudonyms, but, like most people, they were foolish enough to leave that matter up to me. Hence “Papa Pete Blong Vila” and “Boe Blong Pete” were born. More on them and all of us should appear on King Cricket, eventually.
Dumbo (my car) rode like the wind, but had to do so the long way round due to a closure on the M40. Thank goodness for the sat nav, which turned me round and sent me through Birmingham and the M6 South at the very start of my journey, otherwise the extra 20-25 minutes that the detour entailed might have been an extra hour plus in traffic jams.
Well played, Dumbo
I thought I’d left England in a good position at stumps on Day two, which I had. But in my absence it all unravelled in the next two-three days. Only Australians, neutrals or mentally strong England fans should click here for the scorecard and cricinfo resources on this match.
The very first ball of the very first test match between England and Ireland
23 July 2019 – the day before the inaugural test match between England and Ireland. I had arranged to play real tennis at Lord’s that afternoon, but got the call to see if I could play “senior gentleman’s doubles” at noon. This was not especially convenient for me, given my chosen 16:00 slot for singles, but I acquiesced to play “if they were desperate”. I got the call at about half-ten.
As it turned out, the main senior gentleman had got his dates mixed up and wasn’t there, so I ended up playing a not-quite-so-senior gentleman’s singles. I played rather well, perhaps spurred on by the presence of two of the Ireland test cricketers; Kevin O’Brien and Andrew Balbirnie, who took a great deal of interest in the game and watched for a good 20 minutes or so.
Returning to Lord’s for my 16:00 session, I realised that playing two hours of singles on a very hot day was not ideal, but it went fine. Coincidentally, as I arrived at the ground Kevin O’Brien was leaving Lord’s. I leaned out of the car window:
“Don’t you want to watch some more tennis?”
“You’re back for more?”
“Yup, I must be mad”.
24 July 2019– Day One of the test. Dominic and I had been talking about finding a day to go to Lord’s with Janie and Pamela for a county match, but as I had tickets for this match, it seemed a good idea to use this Ireland test for our gathering.
Janie took this picture of me, Dominic and Pamela
I brought smoked salmon bagels and Dominic brought a superb selection of cheeses from La Fromagerie. Dominic was one of two people who sent me messages, within a few minutes of each other on the preceding Sunday, wondering about brie cheese given the weather forecast for very hot weather. The other brie-enquirer was Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett.
It was indeed a blisteringly hot day, especially as the sun came out full pelt in the afternoon, making my excellent Mound Stand seats a little over-exposed. Fortunately, we managed to find our way to a clutch of newly-shady seats in the Warner mid-afternoon. It’s not what you know…
Janie took this picture of the cricket
By that time, England had long-since been rolled for diddly-squat and Ireland looked to be in the ascendancy.
Still, it was a most enjoyable day of cricket-watching, eating and chatting.
25 July 2019 – Day Two of the test.
Hazy – but even hotter than the previous day
The weather was set to be even hotter. I knew I’d need to get to Lord’s pretty early to secure shady seats in the Warner. So I did that.
My guests for Day Two were Charles “Charley the Gent Malloy” Bartlett and Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks. On the water front, I brought a spare refillable flask but in fact Chas brought one for each of them, along with the picnic, which Dot “Mrs Malloy” very kindly made up for us all.
We’d agreed in advance that we’d have an alcohol-free day given the extreme heat. I suspect that bar takings were much lower than the MCC had hoped for too. Despite that, the St John’s Ambulance people were kept busy that day – it really was a scorcher – a record July day apparently.
The cricket was good – England set a fairly modest but probably defensible score ending the day nine-down, which meant that there was to be cricket on Day Three. Hurrah. Mostly thanks to an unexpectedly dogged night-watchman job by Jack Leach for England.
25 July 2019 – Day Three of the test. The original plan had been for Chas and Nigel to join me on Day Three as well, but circumstances intervened and they both dropped out several weeks ahead of the match.
In the end, for reasons far too dull to explain, I ended up with three guest tickets to dispense, which ended up in the capable hands of Simon “Awesome Simo” Jacobs, Bobbie “Báirbre” Scully and Pamela (see Day One). Dominic was also going to join us once he had escaped from the Tower of London.
The weather was less than special first thing, so my early morning mission to secure good seats on Day Three comprised finding a similar level of cover as was required for the shade the day before, but also in a position that would avoid any squalls of rain. Again, success.
I took plenty of reading matter as I guessed that none of my guests would be turning up early.
Pamela, who lives nearby, texted in to say that she was going to wait until the showers passed (smart move).
Simon was slightly delayed, but not as delayed as the start of play, so he got to see the first ball…
…which was also the entirety of the remainder of the England innings.
But before that, I had already received a text from Bobbie. I have previously described Bobbie’s timekeeping, which, traditionally was based on leaving Place A for an appointment at Place B at roughly the appointed time to be at Place B. This works fine if Place A and Place B are very close to each other; less fine if they are some distance apart.
…but for the Ireland Test Match she reverted to type. At 10:57, three whole minutes before the test match was due to start, I received this text from Bobbie:
Right, I am leaving [home] now – somewhat behind planned schedule (you will not be surprised to hear)…
Actually, with the rain delay, innings break and then another rain delay very early in the Ireland innings, Bobbie and Pamela (both of whom arrived around 12:15/12:30) only missed about eight balls and no runs. Just the one wicket.
…in fact, the cricketing side of things was done and dusted just over an hour later.
That’s not enough time to get through a whole picnic.
It wasn’t even enough time for Bobbie to get through her cricketing anecdote. It turned out that this wasn’t Bobbie’s first experience of international cricket; it was her second. The tale of her first, from 1977, is such a good anecdote it deserves its own Ogblog piece. Perhaps Bobbie will write it as a guest piece or perhaps I’ll have to ghost write it.
The stewards allowed us and the assembled masses to continue our picnics and convivialities for some time, although the arrival of the marching bagpipe band to “entertain” us seemed like an excellent way for the considerate host that is the MCC to make everyone feel that they remain welcome while driving all but the sturdiest (and/or deafest) away.
Simon decided to depart quite swiftly. Dominic joined us briefly before going off to change for his game of realers. Pamela, Bobbie and I watched Dominic play real tennis in the absence of any real Irish folk playing cricket.
After that, Bobbie and I retired to The Bridge (home to the Canal Cafe Theatre) for a more comprehensive catch up.
A most agreeable end to a convivial and sporting week.
Sort of three hours of doubles for me, as Neil at Queen’s asked me at the last minute to help make up a doubles the evening before, so I was still a little sore from trying to keep up with Bomber, The Saint and The Biscuit (all well above my handicap/pay grade).
For our two hour session, Dominic and Bill (as last time), but this time we were joined by Snitch for the first hour. After Snitch left, we played a real tennis form of Canadian Doubles, with the server/receiver from the doubles pair grabbing the “honour” of doing the hard work as the single player until defeated.
I worked up quite a sweat, especially as the single towards the end. Then picked up the message from Fletch at Middlesex CCC that Kevin Hand wanted to interview me this evening about the London Cricket Trust and AB de Villiers, for BBC Radio London and BBC Essex, so we arranged that between the sweats and the showers.
Soon after I set off in Dumbo for home, I felt a touch of cramp starting in my foot and tried to wriggle my foot while braking for the lights…but instead slipped my foot onto the accelerator, requiring me to switch to emergency stop braking which made one hell of a screech.
Better than half-a-yard…or more or less the nick. Phew.
I signalled an apology to the driver in front, who seemed to be apoplectic with rage, leaping about in his seat and waving his arms. Then I realised that he was car-seat-jiving while listening to loud music. Perhaps he hadn’t even noticed my near miss.
When the lights changed, the jiver/driver in front zoomed off ahead of me, as fast as I have ever seen someone zoom out of Palliser Road. Whether he was just that sort of driver or desperate to get away from me I’ll never know.
Then some work in the sweatshop that is my little office at home on a sunny afternoon.
So I had another shower before heading to Lord’s – not for the start of the match but in good time for my “over 18 of the first innings” appointment with Fletch.
As I got out of the shower, the phone was ringing. Fletch.
Can we meet a little earlier than I said – like over 15?…
…sure, I’m just getting ready to leave…
I’m sorry, it’s because I have other media to do on the pavilion side in the interval after dropping you off…Eoin Morgan…
…should be no problem, Fletch, but I need to get off the phone so I can put on some clothes and leave. I know its radio, but I figure I’ll still need to put on some clothes to get through the street, the gates and to the media centre?…
…yes, I think that would be for the best.
In fact I was making good time and got to the Maida Vale/St John’s Wood borders, where I knew I could park easily, bang on 18:30. So I was in the ground and able to watch cricket for about half-an-hour before wending my way round to the media centre, where I enjoyed the commentator’s view of the last few overs and could hear the radio commentary of course…in the commentary box.
Below is my interview, which runs for about eight minutes if you want to hear it all.
In the commentary box was the artefact pictured below. It seems that the media centre tea-time spread was adorned by this artefact for each of the world cup matches at Lord’s, with the badges of that day’s competing nations shown on the helmets. Left over from the world cup final on Sunday:
Kevin Hand was apologetic about the shortness of the interview and the fact that he sort-of had to leave me to it while he photographed and tweeted about Eoin Morgan. But Kevin owed me no apology for that; it was great and timely publicity for the London Cricket Trust charity.
In any case, it seems Kevin might want me to do the odd additional slot with him this season. If for no other reason, I think he’s keen to disambiguate Ian Harris and Ged for any listeners who might, understandably, be bemused and/or amused.
Kevin also apologised to me when he discovered that I came in especially for the interview as I hadn’t planned to attend the match. Again no apology needed as I live so close by and in fact I am so glad I was there for the post world cup afterglow. The Middlesex v Essex match was even played on the world cup pitch.
In fact I stayed for just the first few overs of the Middlesex innings before heading home and catching the end of the match on the broadcast.
One final anecdote. When I mentioned during my interview that AB de Villiers had come out to Deptford for us just a few hours after landing from South Africa, Kevin wondered whether we might have tired him out ahead of his first appearance for Middlesex. I think the scorecard and match reports attest that Kevin needn’t have worried.
Why did one of the greatest cricketers of all time, AB de Villiers, pop along to Deptford Park, more or less hot off the plane from South Africa, to help the London Cricket Trust (LCT) put cricket back into London’s parks?
Because AB de Villers is a very decent chap, that’s why.
The LCT is a joint venture between the four counties with a London presence: Essex, Kent, Middlesex & Surrey. I am the Middlesex Trustee.
Exile. Banishment. There are no polite words for it. We cannot play at Lord’s for several weeks because the ground is hosting four days of world cup matches during that time. This expatriation applies to real tennis players and cricketers alike.
And we love Lord’s. We’d like to sing the praises of the place, but…
…how can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
On the bright side, of course, we have other places to go and in truth they are not such strange lands. For realists, there is The Queen’s Club and Middlesex University. For Middlesex cricketers, there is Radlett and Merchant Taylor’s School (MTS), amongst other places.
…Janie (aka Daisy) and I had hoped to arrange a similar day at MTS. But Fran and Simon had other commitments on the Sunday, while Janie couldn’t free up enough time on the Tuesday.
Luckily, I was able to get enough work done on the Monday to free up the Tuesday for cricket.
So I arranged a game of real tennis at Middlesex University in the morning, with a view to getting from The Burroughs to MTS soon after 11:00. Here is a very short clip depicting real tennis at Middlesex University – actually taken by Janie on the Radlett day:
I liaised with Fran and Simon, working out that I was due to arrive a few minutes ahead of them, so I wandered around and grabbed some excellent seats alongside the Middlesex diehards, such as Barmy Kev, Andy Biggs, Keith Roberts, along with several others.
By the time I arrived, Middlesex had already lost a couple more wickets and the position looked very precarious indeed. By the time Fran and Simon arrived, the position was looking even more precarious.
This picture, taken by Janie, from Radlett a few weeks earlier
In that early part of the day, we all three thought we might well be about to witness a Middlesex loss and that we might not be around for too long. Nevertheless, Fran and I had both learnt our lesson ar Radlett and resolved to stroll around at regular intervals.
We set off for our first stroll around 12:30 and took a good 30 minutes to complete the circuit.
One of the wonderful things about outground cricket at Middlesex is that the players and club officials really do wander around and mingle with the spectators, giving the matches a festival feel.
We soon encountered Dawid Malan and James Keatley, gaining some interesting insight into Dawid’s perception of how many runs Middlesex might need to have a chance to defend a total (a lead of 160 to 180 he said).
A little further on, Steve Finn similarly suggested that a lead of 170 would be enough, although Sam Robson alongside him was more nuanced with his answer…
…as long as Gloucestershire don’t manage a big partnership or two.
But at that stage, thoughts of such a lead were still hope not expectation, with Middlesex 7-down, and the lead crawling up to, then just past, 100. By the end of our stroll and lunch the lead had crept up to around 140.
Fran and Simon were surprised at how cosy and friendly the atmosphere is, perhaps attributing it to my involvement with Middlesex. While that is the case to some extent, I have found the outground atmosphere relentlessly friendly since long before I was involved with the club.
Putting ancient tales of Greek tragedy to one side, the mood at lunch amongst the Middlesex supporters was a real mixture of sanguine and resigned. As the afternoon went on, the clouds and the mood lifted to increasing brightness. With increased hope, of course, came some nerves.
Then when Middlesex were all out and had some 11 overs to bowl before tea, discussion of how many wickets we might “need” before tea to establish a foothold and to have a chance of completing the match that day. Two or three was the wisdom of the crowd. It looked as though we’d have to make do with two until the last ball before tea, which made three.
Tim Murtagh bowled beautifully that day and in so doing overtook Wayne Daniel’s record tally of wickets for Middlesex, which was a pretty impressive statistic to hear announced on the tannoy.
Richard Goatley and Angus Fraser held an impromptu members’ forum in the beer tent, at which they were apparently being bombarded with difficult questions about Middlesex’s tough start to the season. It was meant to be a tea interval thing but went on some time after that, during which time Middlesex continued to take wickets.
As one wag put it, there were some grumpy members in the beer tent complaining about Middlesex’s poor performance, while the team was turning around and looking like winning a tough match.
Richard Goatley is one of the world’s worst watchers of a cricket match when he has emotional skin in the game, so there was no consoling him with talk of 40/6…40/7 probably meaning that Middlesex was heading for a win.
In fact, Gloucestershire, in an echo of Middlesex’s innings, put on a bit of a rearguard at 7-down, so much so that the Middlesex regulars encouraged me and Fran to go for another long walk, as our previous walk had been so successful from a Middlesex point of view.
Don’t come back until Middlesex have taken another wicket…or two…
…was the message from the welcoming regulars.
A mini exile. But in any case, we were ready for another stroll and sure enough, we’d only got about 100 yards into our circuit when another wicket and then another fell.
When we got to the pavilion, at 9-down, I saw Angus sitting with his serious game face on.
Surely you can break a smile now, Gus?…
…I asked…
…not yet…
…snarled Gus, who then broke into that rare, full Gus smile.
Fran and I got back to our seats with the Gloucestershire final wicket pair holding on for grim death, but in truth the only remaining issue was whether they could survive the extra half hour or not.
Not. A splendid Middlesex win by the end of the day, having turned around a seemingly losing position an hour into Day Three.
I normally write more about the conversations than the cricket, but the cricket and ground vibe was so special this day. In any case Fran asked to redact several of the conversations. The non-redacted topics of conversation included:
Roy Hudd
Rod Hull
Barry Wood
Benny Howell
Benny Hill
Merchant Taylors’ School
cashew nuts
New Zealand v India at Old Trafford
rain in Manchester
the possible death of the adverb.
It really had been a very exciting and enjoyable day amongst friends. What with the real tennis at Middlesex University and the Middlesex cricket win at MTS, I had conducted myself very Middlesexly indeed, I feel.
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 Thirlwell to the left of me, this picture from a battle at Queen’s in 2018
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;
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 got this stunning picture of the anthems and the ground from our splendid seats
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.
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.
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.
**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.
Aussie anthem first; then the UK one. I’m no fan of either tune, frankly……but I can look suitably reverent.
Daisy was trigger happy at first with her iPhone camera…
Ball caught in mid air roughly half way down the track
…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.
Some beer I have never heard of – on principle I now won’t try it
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 got no closer than this.
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.
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.
Daisy and I thought we’d take in a bit of out-ground cricket and/but the dates haven’t been working out great for the two of us.
But this particular Monday did work well for us and also suited Fran & Simon. The only issue, as I saw it, was the unseasonably wet weather we were experiencing.
True, the forecast suggested that our day was set fair, but then the forecast had looked fair for the two preceding days and had brought plenty more rain.
Anyway, we took stock on the very morning and all agreed that set fair it was. So we agreed to meet up roughly at the end of the lunch interval.
Daisy and I had a “game of lawners” first thing; quite a rigorous workout ahead of my game of “realers” scheduled at Middlesex University later.
Daisy and I got to Radlett just as the umpire’s called lunch. This enabled us to snap up some good front row seats during the lunch interval – perhaps abandoned after the first session or perhaps not yet used that day.
Soon after we grabbed those seats we saw Posh Margaret and chatted with her for a while. She’s very pessimistic about Middlesex’s position this season – I’m still reserving judgement on the whole season as I feel there is still time for Middlesex to improve and get promoted.
The weather really was smiling on us – as evidenced by this picture of Daisy.
…so it was easy to give Fran and Simon directions to the seats.
Before Fran and Simon arrived, I led Janie to believe that she was going to see the England One-Day Captain, Eoin Morgan, playing in this match. This seemed extraordinary, as Eoin was also scheduled to appear for England in the world cup fixture the next day, in what turned out to be a record-breaking innings of his.
Here we all are.
Soon after Fran and Simon arrived, I made the same announcement with regard to Mr Morgan. Fran seemed surprised/pleased but Simon was onto it straight away; “Oh yes”, said Simon, “a Welsh chap named Owen Morgan plays for Glamorgan“.
We then went in search of Morgan on the field, discovered that he was number 29 and then tried to get a suitable photo of him.
Janie thought she had succeeded in getting an action shot of him, but then numbers is not what Janie does best:
Nick Selman is neither Eoin Morgan nor is he Owen Morgan
In the end, after several rather poor attempts, I finally snapped this:
Incontrovertible evidence that we saw Morgan play that day
Daisy is convinced that Owen Morgan has the body language and rear-view appearance of Eoin Morgan.
So much were we enjoying ourselves that I clean forgot to get up and walk around at all – which is a bit of a mistake when a three hour session is the order of the day.
So when we parted company just before five, Fran suggested, gently, that I was not moving quite as a tennis player should. That accurate observation might explain my tennis results for the next few days, until I got to see Michael Durtnall (the chiropractor).
