Tag: international cricket

Essex v Australians at Chelmsford, Day 2, 2 July 2015

A day out in Chelmsford, reported upon at length on the King Cricket website.

This season my possessions are taking an increasing role in proceedings, writing many of my King Cricket match reports for me.  Dumbo, the Suzuki Jimny started this trend while we were in Ireland – click here.  Dumbo continued this trend on a half-day out to Uxbridge, linked through this posting here.  There will be more to come from Dumbo, once King Cricket gets around to publishing it.

Ivan The Smart Phone Reporting
Ivan The Smart Phone Reporting

But the report on the Chelmsford day was a first airing for Ivan the Smart Phone, my iPhone 5.  He tells you almost everything you might want to know about that day out, in a rather logical style – here. Indeed there will also be plenty more to come from Ivan.

To understand my King Cricket match reports you need to know that:

  • Ged and Daisy are nicknames/noms de plume for me and Janie. Friends are all referred to pseudonymously;
  • King Cricket match reports have strict rules: “If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.”

If you do want to know about the cricket itself, you might want to have a look at the on-line scorecard – here.  Essex did rather well the day we went, perhaps foreshadowing problems to come for the Aussies that year, but we really didn’t spot the weakness at the time, that delightful day in Chelmsford.

Zimbabwe v Australia At Lord’s, World Cup Match, 9 June 1999

This was the first time that Janie (Daisy) ever visited Lord’s.

It was my second ever, and last, visit to Lord’s in the 20th century. It was also the only time I actually bought tickets for Lord’s that century, having been taken as a guest on my sole previous visit there:

My First Visit To Lord’s, England v Pakistan Day Two, 26 July 1996

Unaccustomed as I was to buying tickets for Lord’s back then…oh boy have I made up for it since…and probably a bit slow of the mark for the World Cup to boot, I ended up getting Lower Compton seats some rows back. All has changed since (he says, 25 years later), but back then the Lower Compton was a wind tunnel affair through which you got a somewhat restricted view and in particular had no clear view on a scoreboard.

Who knew that it can be really cold in London at a cricket match in June? Who failed to learn from this 1999 experience?

Middlesex v Australians, Lord’s, 19 June 2010

Once I became better acquainted with Lord’s for a while I would book the Lower Compton front row, which avoided the wind tunnel and tended to have a decent view. But never again did I make the mistake of buying tickets in the middle or rear of that stand. The new Lower Compton is SO much better.

Returning to 1999, we nevertheless had a great day, despite the ordinary seats. It is so difficult not to have a good day at Lord’s. It was even, somewhat surprisingly, a good match, with Neil Johnson & Murray Goodwin keeping Zimbabwe in the hunt for most of the match. All the Cricinfo resources for this match can be found here.