Tag: Lord’s

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.

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

Picture taken from the Compton Stand at a Test some 20 years later.

There are only cryptic messages in my diary, but I do remember this day well:

Cookie Lords

Charlie Barnett 98 before lunch

Olly

Heather Rabbatts

Cookie in this instance is James Cooke, who was doing a bit of associate work with us, mostly introductions. As it turned out, the most fruitful introduction Cookie made (from my personal/selfish point of view) was introducing me to Lord’s.

Believe it or not this was my first visit to Lord’s. Little did I know then how much of my time I would end up spending in that wonderful place.

Why Cookie mentioned and I wrote down that factoid about Charlie Barnett, is a mystery. Perhaps Cookie had met or was related to Charlie Barnett?

I wrote down the names Olly and Heather Rabbatts in different coloured ink from the other notes – I’m guessing I wrote the latter two while at Lord’s with Cookie. I cannot remember who Olly is/was. I do recall that Cookie wanted to introduce us to Heather, whom he knew. She was a high flyer who at that time had recently become Chief Executive at Lambeth.

It was an informal invitation – just the two of us, me and Cookie sitting in the Compton Stand. That stand was still quite new then and did not yet have the sweep/link to the Grandstand, as the new Grandstand was still a year away.

England were not a good side in the mid 1990s and looked out of their depth batting against that fine Pakistan bowling line up, which included Wasim, Waqar and Mushtaq.

Here is a link to the scorecard from the match.

I remember Cookie providing a splendid picnic – I guess that was to be the prototype for my informal hospitality picnics in the coming decades.

I’m sure I thanked Cookie at the time but there is no way I could have thanked him sufficiently for planting that Lord’s seed in my psyche. So 20+ years and hundreds of visits later, I’d like to thank Cookie again for the introduction to Lord’s.