Tag: The Hundred

Our Bodies Were At Lord’s, While Our Hearts Were In Radlett: Ella Eyre Concert At Lord’s, Preceded And Followed By The Hundred Finals, 16 August 2026

Hold that stage!

Our excitement ahead of the The Hundred finals day was surely the fact that we would see Ella Eyre perform. After all, neither of the London teams had qualified for either of the finals, so we were really attending as neutrals, cricket-wise.

Contrast that with the extraordinary goings on in the 50 over county competition this year, in which Middlesex had qualified for a home semi-final – getting to that stage of a “List A” competition for the first time in 36 years.

Why didn’t you see that coming when you bought me a ticket for The Hundred Finals Day in early March?…

…asked Janie (aka Daisy)- a question to which no answer came to mind. I probably should have said:

We’ve seen Middlesex play Durham at Radlett before…with predictably hilarious results…

A vegetable being conspicuously indifferent to cricket?

…but I didn’t say that.

We toyed with the idea of Coxing and Boxing between Radlett and Lord’s, before bowing to the inevitable and conceding that our planned trip to the Ella Eyre concert was our fate. After all, Daisy had been planning her break dancing routines (or rather her ways of saying no to the suggestion that she try break dancing routines) ever since I showed her the following music video – in particular the dancing that starts about a minute in:

Thus, we played tennis in the morning, freshened up (while keeping an eye on the Radlett score of course) and then headed to Lord’s.

I thought a 13:30 arrival would allow us a great choice of seating in the Pavilion, but no longer is that so on The Hundred finals day. The families and guests which comprises much of the audience for this event are getting in earlier and earlier to grab the front terrace, including death row which used to be our dance floor.

Rudimental at the Hundred finals (a match report)

We retreated to the sun deck at the top of the pavilion, which is, in any case, Daisy’s favourite spot. We were soon joined by a gentleman with a familiar-sounding voice who turned out to be an actor who was wondering what the Middlesex score might be.

We spent the women’s match chatting and watching a bit of the live cricket and utterly forgetting to take pictures. In truth the match was a one-sided damp squib – see details here if you wish. That was a bit of a shame, as our experience tells us that the women’s match is often a lot closer than the men’ s.

But we needn’t have worried at that stage of the day, as the Middlesex v Durham match seemed poised at that juncture, while the Ella Eyre concert was being set up.

Then Middlesex lost a lot of wickets at Radlett and I foolishly mentioned, not only that Middlesex were seven down, but also break dancing, to the actor gentleman. Disappointed at what he assumed to be Middlesex’s demise, and the onset of some music he wouldn’t much like, the gentleman made his excuses and departed.

Daisy and I decided to go downstairs and get “in amongst it” for the start of the Ella Eyre.

The gig started with a slow number and the backing singers, musicians and dancers, uniformly strangely clad in an almost funereal mode.

Ella could be seen on the big screen singing within the pavilion. It was apparent that she would join them on the stage by coming out of the long room using the traditional cricketer’s route…although not in a traditional cricketer’s style:

Ella dashed down the pavilion steps and then up the stage stairs

Daisy took a short video of this up-beat number, Just Got Paid, which I had used as part of the due diligence briefing pack, I hasten to add:

Then we went back up top to our seats, to watch the rest of the concert. I especially liked the fact that the women players, including the defeated Sunrisers Leeds, mingled together on the outfield, sitting and watching the concert together.

Ella also went walkies on the outfield.

It looks like one heck of an effort to stage these Finals Day Concerts, but I do think there’s something rather wonderful about them and embrace the idea that short form cricket is an entertainment event that tries to have something for all the family. It certainly means that we get a family audience for these matches, which is great to see.

By the time the concert was over and the players were getting ready for the men’s match, I glanced at my phone and saw that Middlesex were trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Indeed, they were making a very good job of dangling that “hope carrot” before my eyes.

I decided not to say anything to Daisy about the Middlesex match at that juncture, but I suppose she couldn’t help but notice that I was showing surprisingly little interest in the early stages goings on at Lord’s.

What’s up?

…asked Daisy. It seemed foolish to hide the truth from her. I showed her my phone, with the current score.

Oh my goodness, we’re going to do it…

…she said.

DON’T SAY THAT!

I replied, pointing out that the eighth wicket had fallen simply because Daisy had baited the cricket gods. Yet, Daisy persisted,

I still think we’ll do it.

Of course, she was right…in the end. Here’s chapter and verse on the match we didn’t see.

Almost at once, a generous message from Yorkshire Simon:

I’m delighted for you. Middlesex have been poor at getting over the line…but nothing like as bad as Yorkshire.

I didn’t dare tell him we were sitting at Lord’s watching The Hundred.

Anyway, Daisy and I sat out the rest of the Trent Rockets innings, while plotting our early escape. We figured that we could be home in time to see most of the Manchester Super Giants innings on the TV while celebrating Middlesex’s win with a glass of wine. And if The Hundred final proved to be an exciting ending, we’d be able to see it from comfortable seats and not have the heave of the departing crowd to contend with.

Thus it was decided, and thus it turned out – here’s the card.

An enjoyable and exciting day on all fronts.

The Hundred – London Spirit v MI London Two-Legger: At The Oval With Sistra 29 July, Then Lord’s With Jerub 6 August 2026

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.

Zipping up my boots, going back to my Sarf Lundun roots.

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.

Bore Draw – NOT!!, MTWD Piece, Surrey v Middlesex Day 4, The Oval, 9 May 2009

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.

It’s showtime. Make some noise.

I then retired to the sundeck for watching and reading.

I sent this image to Janie, who said it looked as though I was on a boat…

…so I proved that I was not on a boat, although LS were a little at sea by then.

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.

Tinie Tempah Live At Lord’s – Preceded By And Followed By Some Cricket, 23 July 2026

Janie and I like a bit of live music. And we like going to Lord’s. And we like cricket. The Hundred might have been designed just for us. OK, perhaps not our first choice of music and our first choice of cricket format, but you cannot have everything. We always enjoy these afternoons and evenings.

On this occasion, we had business to attend to earlier in the day – kitchen and sound system planning doesn’t do itself, you know. And once we have really acquired the taste for thumping bass, rap music, we’ll need better speakers than those we currently sport in the house.

When we arrived at Lord’s, the monosodium glutamate (MSG) women’s team had already dispatched the London Spirit Women for the square root of diddly squat.

We decided to eat. Tasty pork baps and salad were the order of the day in the Long Room Bar.

Then we thought we’d better watch a bit of cricket. A very little bit of the women’s match as it turned out, but still we were able to get a vantage point on Janie’s beloved sun deck.

Then a short break before the highlight of the day – Tinie Tempah.

I tried to explain to some of the regular gentlemen around us that Janie is more of a Tinchy Stryder person than a Tinie Tempah-ista. I then asked the gentlemen who their favourite rappers might be. It took them a while to realise that I was pulling their legs…

…before amazing them with my rapper dance moves. I am quite sure the gentlemen had never seen anything quite like it – indeed one or two of them said words to that effect. Here’s an example of Tinie’s work with dancers doing some very similar moves to those I displayed:

For those who missed the concert…or perhaps even were there but couldn’t hear very much…here are a couple of Tinie’s best numbers, which he did perform on the day:

After the main event, we had just a little energy left to watch a bit of cricket. London Spirit bowled first and seemed to restrict MSG to a modest total.

James Coles showing his much-mentioned £390,000 worth with the ball

We left about half way through the London Spirit innings, with the match poised but tilting in MSG’s favour, as indeed it turned out, in a nail-biting finish which we caught when we got back to the flat.

Never mind – we enjoyed our day.

Here’s the Cricinfo resources on the women’s match.

Here’s the Cricinfo resources on the men’s match.

The Rest Is Cricket: Radlett & Lord’s In The Second Half Of August 2025

Clarification: The Headline Photo Is Lord’s. Not Radlett.

Readers of this piece might be deceived into thinking that I spent an entire fortnight at the end of August 2025 watching cricket. Nothing could be further from the truth.

However, the only photogenic and noteworthy events I attended, as it happens, were cricket. The rest is… [insert your choice of expletive here].

17 August: Middlesex v Yorkshire At Radlett

Much like the Middlesex batting, the camera at the Salter’s Field End couldn’t keep up

A long in the planning arrangement to meet up with Yorkshire Simon & Jilly Black at Radlett, where Middlesex & Yorkshire were to do battle in a One Day Cup match.

The events in the days prior to the match seemed almost too good to be true. Both teams were towards or at the top of the table, making the clash meaningful tournament-wise, unlike our previous meet-up there for the same fixture a couple of years earlier:

A Day At Radlett Watching One Day Cricket With “Pinner Pear Fran” & “Yorkshire Simon”, 22 August 2023

Also, it seemed that the weather would smile on us for the day, as it had done in 2023. That is one good thing about having the plethora of outground cricket in July and August – those are probably the most reliable months for dry weather, which really is a big help at outgrounds like Radlett.

We all turned up. Even some of Simon’s friends who we hadn’t been told to expect turned up, which added to the “informal gathering” vibe.

Sadly, Middlesex didn’t turn up, but we don’t need to talk about that bit. In 2023, Yorkshire barely turned up.

Jilly had never been to a cricket match before. Being someone who wouldn’t exactly describe herself as a sports lover, she showed some reluctance at having the LBW law explained to her in excruciating detail. Nor did Jilly seem keen to understand the difference between finger spin and wrist spin.

Jilly did, however, notice a women sitting in front of us, whose posture on the portable folding chair brought on a quite extreme “builder’s bum” appearance. I would never have noticed such a thing, but Jilly pointed it out to Janie and Janie then pointed it out to me. Once such a thing has been pointed out to you, it is hard to avoid taking the occasional glance, although I think I did better self-control job than Jilly:

Me, watching the cricket, Jilly, taking in the crack

Janie was too polite to photograph the costume malfunction woman, who, I hope, remained oblivious to the distraction she had unwittingly caused.

It was a weird afternoon in more ways than just bum cleavage. When Janie and I went to the loo, we noticed a person, quite clearly an elderly man, entering the women’s portacabin toilet. Janie and another woman went in soon after. I waited outside until all had emerged, just in case. First the man, then the other woman, then Janie. The two women paused to have a chat about the experience, as Janie had challenged the man, gently, asking…

…are you in the right place?

Yes…

…said the man, incredulously.

I went through the appropriate door, did my small amount of business and then turned/returned to photograph the portacabin toilet doors, to see if there was any ambiguity in the signage:

Unambiguous

“No ambiguity there. Perhaps the wrong-door-old-geezer was a little tired and emotional”.

None of this stopped us from having a very enjoyable afternoon at Radlett with Simon and Jilly.

20 August: The Hundred At Lord’s Plus The Night Tapes

Warner facing up to the Northern Superchargers

The weather was great. Janie and I got to Lord’s in good time and bagged one of Janie’s favourite spots on the sun deck. We enjoyed the women’s match pretty much in its entirety and then went to have a quick look at the tennis court, which turned into a longer look than intended such that we missed most of the gig, which is a shame because I quite liked the dreamy sound of IIris and her gang, The Night Tapes, when I researched the matter oh so thoroughly the night before the gig.

I especially liked this one, when researching:

As is often the case for us on these The Hundred days, we had enjoyed ourselves enough by about 65-70 balls into the first of the men’s match innings, so we grabbed some shawarmas from The Cedar stall on exit and followed the end of the match on TV while munching and drinking some wine.

Our day on finals day ended similarly, but before that day ended…

31 August: The Hundred Finals Day Including A Perrie Concert

Davina Perrin batting for the Northerns – remember where and when you first heard her name

Again we got to Lord’s in good time, although we were, for the first time in ages, to take in this match from the Warner stand, not the pavilion. I had prioritised a physiotherapy appointment over being able to log in first in the queue for The Hundred tickets on the day the tickets were released. 😇

Actually it was a nice perspective on finals day – not least because we could hear the hullabaloo better from the Warner than you can up top in the pavilion.

The women’s match was a good one.

During the interval between matches, Barry Nathan popped over for a chat.

After being elevated in front of the media centre, Perrie popped around to our stand, bringing her dance-and-pose troupe with her:

You can see Perrie’s full performance through this link.

Or you might prefer the highlights that Janie (Daisy) videoed for herself which, obviously, are better…or at least, shorter and more to the point:

After all that commotion, even the fireworks at the start of the second match seemed tame:

After watching the end of the second match at home over shawarmas and wine, I did wonder whether the Oval franchise might be renamed The Oval Inevitables unless the authorities change the recruitment rules for future seasons.

Still, Janie and I always enjoy these days out at Lord’s, and this year’s finals day was no exception.

A Day At The Hundred Final, 18 August 2024

Zara Larsson making a mockery of the pavilion dress code.

Janie and I went to the final of the Hundred…again.

Pretty much everything I want to say about the day is beautifully summarised in the King Cricket piece, “authored by Daisy”, in which I am Ged and Janie is Daisy:

Daylight Larssony at The Hundred Final – a match report

If anything were to befall the King Cricket website, you can read that piece here.

The only details to add, as King Cricket match reports religiously omit anything about the cricket itself, are:

  • the women’s final was Welsh Fire v London Spirit, which the latter won. This was the first time a domestic home side had won a white ball trophy at Lord’s since the 1980s, so we were dancing in the seats of the Lord’s pavillion that afternoon;

We had a lovely day.

An Afternoon & Evening “Watching” London Spirit v Manchester Originals At Lord’s

Janie “watching cricket” intensely.

This brace of matches (women’s and then men’s) was also a Nell Mescal concert.

Pretty much everything I wanted to say about our afternoon and evening was captured in a King Cricket piece, which was published with alarming speed, I think because it touched on one of KC’s pieces about Dan Lawrence’s gyratory bowling action.

Conspicuous indifference to Dan Lawrence’s gyrations from a human being

If anything were ever to go awry over at King Cricket, you can read that article here.

In the unlikely event that anyone wants to know what happened in those matches:

As is so often the case with these matches, the women’s one was closer and in that regard far more entertaining. We didn’t stay to the end of the men’s one. We rarely do, regardless of how it is going. You CAN have too much of a good thing – especially when it starts to get a bit chilly in the evening.

But as usual we had a jolly good time.

The Hundred Finals Day At Lord’s, With Rudimental, 27 August 2023

Almost everything that I want to say in words about this event is contained in the “match report” on King Cricket – click here or below, where, in case you didn’t know, dear reader, I am Ged and Janie is Daisy:

Rudimental at the Hundred finals (a match report)

If anything were ever to go awry with the King Cricket site, click this link for a scrape of that report.

Janie took a ludicrous number of pictures – you can see them all through the Flickr link below:

Janie and I were very motivated by the live appearance of Rudimental and mugged up on their hits in advance of the concert…I mean Finals Day.

I expected that we might see live performances of at least four Rudimental bangers and we were treated to all four of the ones I expected we’d see:

I was also hoping for this next one, which I especially liked when mugging up, but they didn’t do this one. Shoulda been a bigger hit in my opinion, but my opinion didn’t guarantee hits even when I was younger, let alone now!

A “Billy No-Mates” Visit To Lord’s To See A Bit Of The Hundred, 18 August 2023

After a busy week and a visit to Ben the chiropractor that afternoon (nothing to do with Olaf The Buddhist Viking, btw), I thought I’d stop off at Lord’s before going back to the house and catch a tad of The Hundred, given that both of my previous attempts to see any (Janie wimped out on 2 August) had been to a greater or lesser extent thwarted by poor weather.

I got to see men’s as well as women’s cricket. I located myself in the pavilion for the women’s game, then shifted to the Upper Allen for the men’s, seeking a slightly different view and a good location for a fast getaway.

I wasn’t wild about the Charles music as it sounded live from the stands at Lord’s, although I must say I got more out of it listening on SoundCloud when i got home. Click here to listen to some Charles.

The MC/DJ implored us all to make noise before the start of the men’s match, as oft she does.

I sneaked away from the ground soon after the start of the reply innings of the men’s match. You CAN have too much of a good thing. I didn’t want to sit too long and I did fancy a timely dinner with Daisy.

An Afternoon & Evening At Lord’s Watching The Hundred & The Rain With Colin “Olaf the Buddhist Viking” Stutt, 8 August 2023

Everything that needs to be said about a most enjoyable afternoon and evening at Lord’s with Colin is contained in the headline and my write up for the King Cricket website – click here or below:

A new fan at the London Spirit v Southern Brave washout – a match report

In the unlikely event that misfortune ever befalls the King Cricket website, please click here for a scrape thereof.

A Couple Of Visits To Lord’s For The Hundred, 30 August and 3 September 2022

30 August 2022 Tennis, Lunch and Cricket

Actually the visit on 30 August started off as a real tennis match in the morning, in which “The Coley Kids” (which sounds like a 1960s Saturday morning pictures series) took apart me and my doubles partner Andrew Hinds.

Never mind. We had a most enjoyable day.

Andrew and I consoled ourselves with a light lunch at The Ivy and then watched The Hundred women’s match together, before Andrew sloped off to Vicarage Road while I stayed on and watched most of the men’s match…

…before ambling home before the end.

Finals Day – 3 September 2022

Pretty much everything that Janie and I want to say about finals day has been said in our (Daisy and Ged’s) King Cricket match report:

The Hundred Finals 2022 match report

(If anything ever goes awry with the above links, click here instead).

We witnessed the whole of the women’s match and bailed out about 30 balls before the end of the men’s match, which turned out to be a closer finish than we anticipated. Never mind. We had a most enjoyable day.