Eton v Harrow at Lords. A badly attended culture war
The annual Eton v Harrow cricket match was played at Lords on Friday.
It was a 55 over a side game but rain intervened and a 30 over game was played with Harrow winning by 4 runs.
The MCC had proposed to stop hosting the match at least partly on the grounds that it didn’t exactly speak to a modern image of cricket. It has been played at Lords since 1805 (before the current ground existed) and has been a one day affair since 1999.
Some MCC members, the Historic Fixtures Group, campaigned to keep the fixture at Lords. A vote of members found 44% in favour of keeping it and 43% against. It will be reviewed again in 2027. Guy Smallman of the Group has claimed that its what Lords is all about- a sort of cricket museum. The Oval is for Test Matches it seems.
The Telegraph moaned that the fixture was not properly publicised and had been downgraded by being moved from June to May.
In fact the attendance was 800 (capacity 20,000) with very few of the members who voted to keep it at Lords in evidence.
So important was the game that no scorecard appeared and the actual result was buried deep in the Telegraph’s report.
There was live commentary by Eton and Harrow masters and students. That at least was broadly competent, although the commentator doing a Michael Holding impression, might want to think about what they did.
In short this was a badly attended outing of the Tory Culture wars
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