A day at the Lords Test
I’ve been going to home Test Matches since I was a boy (in the 1960s since you ask). For many years I attended with my late father, in more recent times with my partner Megan.
Back in the day you just turned up on the day and paid on the gate. The only sell outs I recall were for Ashes games. The seats were uncomfortable and the facilities rudimentary.
Of course these days you have to apply for tickets on the web many months in advance and in the case of Lords show them on the Lords App to gain entry.
Megan and myself were at the second day of the Lords Test lastThursday. It was Jimmy Anderson’s last England Test and unusually there was decent weather. We had restricted view seats in the Mound Stand. Ticket prices at Lords are steepish but less for reduced view and tbh the view was hardly reduced. In fact we had an excellent view of the wicket.
It was my first Test since 2019. Obviously the pandemic intervened but so did the whole issue of racism in cricket. Obviously I knew about it but it didn’t directly impact me (as a 67 year old white man with a beard) and so I avoided thinking about it too much. Once I did think about it I continued to avoid Tests.
Thursday at Lords was a sell out and while I was watching the cricket the conversations I could hear were ones not happy about Farage and perhaps rather too keen on Starmer..
We got to see Jimmy Anderson’s last bat for England (not that he did, he was nought not out without facing a ball) and saw him take wickets in the West Indies second innings. Ben Stokes achieved a record for Test runs and wickets combined and the new keeper Smith of Surrey looked decent with the bat and behind the stumps.
The match lasted only just to lunch on the third day where five were available and it was one sided. There is an issue with Test cricket and the West Indies side, decent at short form cricket, seem to be struggling with the longer form, perhaps in part from lack of games.
Finally it was a Test against the West Indies and the crowd was overwhelmingly white. Those of Caribbean provenance were mostly working not watching. This didn’t use to be the case. It wasn’t much commented on in media reports of the match but there is a huge amount to be done in sorting this. I’m not sure that its being done, well meaning efforts aside.
Still it was good to be back at Lords.
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