Went to this day at the test with Jeremy Smith, who headed up the Z/Yen business that was sold to Aon earlier that year. Jeremy and his team were still working out of our offices at that time.
The weather was none too good for the start of that match. They only got about half a day’s play the previous day, but we almost got a full quota. England had been batting well and carried on doing so. We saw Collingwood, Bell and Prior score tons. This was back in the day, when people still said that Bell only scored tons when they didn’t really matter.
It was a batting pitch though – Lord’s was mostly those for a few years, I think it was because the new turf and drainage settled down and the pitches sort of died – some of the other grounds have suffered similarly a few years after putting in the modern drainage.
We had a very enjoyable day. I recall Jeremy saying how, despite the pleasantness of actually attending, he feels that you can follow a cricket match more readily on the TV than at the ground. Possibly so; certainly back then before the ubiquitous big screens.
Strangely, King Cricket just the other day (as I write in December 2015) reported on a streaker incident at Old Trafford, later in that series – click here. I attended the first two days of that Old Trafford test – report linked here. But the streak business reminds me that Lord’s is like a different world somehow – it’s a long time since we’ve seen a streaker at HQ. And on the rare occasions we get them, they look more genteel somehow than the “gentleman” who did the deed in Manchester – with thanks to Sam for digging out a better picture – here.