The plan was to show James Pitcher around the pavilion late afternoon, possibly having met up with Edwardian (one of King Cricket‘s correspondents) earlier.
But in the end, James couldn’t make it and I lingered at Noddyland, after a good game of tennis with Daisy, not least to see Alastair Cook score his fairytale century in his final test innings.
End of season has been a bit like this, this season. Chas was unable to join me as planned for Day One of the Sussex match a couple of weeks ago, so I only got to see a few hours of that match in the afternoon of Day Two, while showing Bikash and Shivangee around the pavilion, ahead of the Members’ Forum that evening.
Anyway, for this Kent match, I decided instead to go straight from the house to Lord’s in Dumbo and pay to park in St John’s Wood for a few hours rather than stop off at the flat to drop of Dumbo and get suited & booted – Edwardian is a Warner Stand chap rather than a Pavilion person.
Edwardian and I spent about an hour together chatting and watching – he is knowledgeable about cricket and very pleasant company at a game. I shared with him my master plan – shredded by James’s inability to get away from work in time for cricket, which was to get Edwardian to pretend that James is a famous cricketing meme on the back of his one piece of cricketing heroics back in 2004:
Match Of The Day & Play Of The Day, Z/Yen v The Children’s Society, Holland Park, 22 June 2004
Edwardian was pretty sure he’d have been able to pull that stunt off. A shame we couldn’t give it a try. Perhaps another time.
I had wanted for some time to see Ethan Bamber bowl live and this was, at last, my opportunity. I witnessed the young man bowl well and take an early wicket. I explained to Edwardian that I had not previously seen Ethan Bamber bowl, although I had seen his old man, David, play Horatio opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in the latter’s ill-fated Hamlet at the National:
Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Olivier Theatre, 18 March 1989
I had left my thirst extinguisher in Dumbo, so when Edwardian had to leave, I escorted him off the premises – introduced him to Dumbo (who was majestically parked by the Bicentenary Gate) – rescued my thirst extinguisher and returned to the fray, taking up residency at the front of the Tavern Stand.
When Darren Stevens came in to bat, I realised that I was sitting in pretty much the same place as I had sat with Daisy many years before, when Daisy interrogated Darren Stevens somewhat inappropriately:
Middlesex v Leicestershire, List A Match, Lord’s, 9 August 2004
I also realised that Daisy’s Darren Stevens interrogation incident and James Pitcher’s single moment of cricketing glory incident had occurred within a few weeks of each other.
When Ethan Bamber then bowled at Darren Stevens, I thought I should take a picture of the scene from that seat:
Then a strange-looking fellow, with two beers in his hands and the word “chef” painted in white paint on his face in two different places, said, “excuse me, young man” to me in an effort to get past me.
My “young man” moniker years, even at Lord’s, are drawing/have drawn to an end now, so I was pleased to be thus addressed.
He then plonked himself at a polite distance from me. The beers were clearly both for him and he was, equally clearly, far beyond the early stages of his boozy afternoon.
He then formed a one-man chanting troupe – blaring out unfunny, inappropriate and rhythmically-challenged chants in support of his team, Kent. Some people in the crowd tried to shush him. One or two younger folk answered him back. He was in a world of his own.
One of the strange things about him was that his chants came out in very well-spoken tones and had an educated wordiness about them, despite their utter banality and foolishness.
When he left, one or two younger people in the crowd cheered…
…then he came back with more beer.
I got plenty of reading done and even extended my parking to the full four hour maximum permitted, before leaving for home when it started to get a bit chilly, shortly before stumps.
Unlike the Middlesex v Leicestershire game from 2004, this Middlesex v Kent four-dayer did not end well for Middlesex (on the Wednesday), but it was a good tight game of cricket – perhaps the pitch was a little too low-scoring to describe as a good battle between bat and ball – but for sure a good battle between closely-matched teams.
