Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year, it’s just not widely reported.
In the interests of research, it seemed to me terribly important to experience both legs of the The Hundred London derby two-legger this season.
Actually that’s not quite true. I was kindly and generously invited to the Oval by The Surrey Cricket Foundation as a goodbye thank you to London Cricket Trust people.
Every time I visit the Oval now, it feels a little more posh/corporate and a little less like the folksy place where I first saw professional cricket as a kid. Even the gasholder is now a property development promising iconic something-or-other. Such is progress, I suppose.
The London Spirit women looked as though they would make some tournament progress in this match, only to stumble and fail to get beyond the line, ending the match with a rather thrilling tie. You can read all about it here.
Then, to add to the excitement, a rather interesting looking music act named Sistra. It was hard to see them properly in the distance, but you could see them on the big screen. They looked and sounded like this…
…except they weren’t sitting at a dinner table, obviously.
I’d suggest there was a slightly smaller crowd at the Oval for the women’s match than we get at Lord’s, and fewer people sticking around for the music concert. The Oval these days is a hive of bars and food stalls behind most of the stands. Those were well populated, as I discovered by walking around a couple of times; once early in the women’s match and once just before the start of the men’s.
We were being hosted in a Bedser Stand box, very close to the pyrotechnics – which can be welcome on a chilly evening but not so welcome on one of the hottest days on record.
The men’s match had more crash-bang-wallop to it. Indeed, one particularly nasty-looking incident quite close to our vantage point, to our left, when Lhuan-dre Pretorius and James Coles collided, both going for the same catch. It looked ghastly and reminded me of the one-man fielding calamity that Janie and I witnessed in 2009 at almost the exact same spot, that put paid to Tim Murtagh’s match that day and indeed a fair chunk of that season.
Mercifully, (returning to 2026), despite the long injury delay and some subsequent hobbling off by James Coles, Lheun-dre Pretorius was able to his bit with the bat, while James Coles wasn’t needed. You can read all about it here.
As is my wont with matches of this kind, I sloped off before the end in order to avoid the heaving crowds leaving the ground at the end of the match. It had been a most enjoyable afternoon and evening at the Oval.
Roll the clock forward just over a week and I was doing it all again at Lord’s, following a tennis lesson with Chris Bray late morning and some reading before the first match. I decided to go proximate with the pyrotechnics, so I would be able to compare the Lord’s experience with the Oval experience. I think it is fair to say that the ECB marketing people have invested heavily in homogenising that aspect of the experience. The tannoy announcer’s build ups and rabble-rousing cries are similarly homogenous.
I then retired to the sundeck for watching and reading.
You can read all about it here.
Then we were treated to Jerub, who, like Sistra the week before, was really rather good.
I’m not sure that the Oval and Lord’s acoustics does justice to acts like Sistra and Jerub, but I do like the live music between matches.
I watched the first 50 balls or so of the men’s match live, then walked home and caught the end of the match on TV. What a luxury to be able to do that. Here’s what happened in that match.
Janie and I were there at Lord’s on finals day. I bet you cannot wait to read all about it, eh readers? It’ll be the next feature.
