MCC v Warks
Mike Holmans
of the English season at Lord's yesterday. I left after the third
inspection, but when I returned this morning, the people I knew who'd
stayed on said that it was hail which drove the players from the pitch
before they could actually manage to bowl a ball.
It was still bitterly cold today, which makes me think that the best
thing the young hopefuls in the MCC side were going to get out of this
game was the opportunity to collar themselves a few free MCC sweaters.
Except for Matt Prior, that is, who was obviously wearing a sweatshirt
of some sort under his cricket shirt.
It's good to see this traditional fixture being revived: the England
selectors must have decided that it was again worthwhile. The MCC team
is composed traditionally: one top-class foreign Test player (yes, I
know Andy Flower's now using his British passport to be English, but
he was a Zimbabwe Test player), one MCC bod, John Stephenson, and a
bunch of players whom the selectors have in mind. While the game isn't
competitive as such, doing well in this game has usually been a good
way of marking the selectors' cards at the beginning of the season.
Jon Lewis, presumably the next in line for a Test place, opened from
the Nursery End, and Knight stroked his second ball for four. The next
ball he squirted towards third man, and early-season fielding led to
four overthrows. When he whacked Sajid Mahmood's second ball for four
as well, it seemed we were in for a fair old run feast, but that was
largely it for quite a time. Lewis soon settled into bowling a fullish
length on a solid sort of line and giving nothing away. Knight and
Wagh weren't exactly uncomfortable, but it was clear that a lot of
their shots weren't going where they had meant them.
A full length was necessary: this is pretty much a pudding, with short
balls standing up and waving a big sign saying "Hit Me!", an
instruction which both batsmen seemed happy to comply with as Mahmood
and then Harrison tried them a few times before realising the
futility.
After a workmanlike spell of 9 overs from Lewis, he was replaced by
skipper Stephenson, whose medium pace demonstrated why he retired at
the the end of last season, his three overs disappearing for 32. Leiws
came back for a couple more overs Warks went to lunch on 121 for 2
with both Knight and Wagh past 50.
Wagh's been mentioned in despatches as an England possible, and did
nothing wrong today until he decided to advance on Graeme Swann and
chipped him to mid-on, departing for 62. He'd played well, but not
eye-catchingly so.
Knight was going well at this point, and Bell played himself in
gradually, trying as far as possible to give his partner the strike,
which was good batting. After half an hour, he clearly felt settled
and started looking to play, a blistering cover drive off Swann being
followed shortly by a nice-looking hook off Harrison. Unfortunately,
even though the boundary on the Grand Stand side was pretty short
(Knight had already lost a ball there with a relatively weak six into
the vacant hospitality shelf), he'd underhit it and Pettini gratefully
accepted the catch.
Knight was 91* and looking good for a ton, but Trott did the opposite
of what Bell had done, and farmed the strike for himself. He wasn't
trying to - he was desperately trying to get off strike the whole
time, but kept failing until about the fifth ball of the over. After
12 overs of this, in which Knight had managed to crawl to 98, there
was a little mid-wicket conference. Trott tried to flay the first two
balls of the next over, and then proceede to play the rest of it our
as a maiden, and then Knight calmly swept Swann's first ball of the
next over for two and reached three figures.
Swann was mostly just firing it in flat. With no purchase in the pitch
and frozen fingers, putting a lot of work on the ball and tossing it
up was probably not going to be a good idea. He switched to going over
the wicket to the left-handed Knight, who decided to reverse sweep
him. The general point of the reverse sweep is to play the ball into
an area where there aren't any fielders, so perhaps it wasn't really a
good idea to play a lofted one directly at cover point on 115.
However, since it got him back to the warmth of the Pavilion, it's at
least debatable.
Trott played nicely for 75 before being caught by one of the many MJ
Powells playing in this game (well, one on each team, anyway), and
shortly afterwards Warks declared. Naturally, the light closed in and
it will be tomorrow before we see the MCC hopefuls batting against
Streak and Pretorius.
The season has started, if unremarkably.
Cheers,
Mike
alvey
> According to some of the papers this morning, snow delayed the start
> of the English season at Lord's yesterday. I left after the third
> inspection, but when I returned this morning, the people I knew who'd
> stayed on said that it was hail which drove the players from the pitch
> before they could actually manage to bowl a ball.
O to be in England
now that snow has turned to hail.
alvey
in briz, mentioning that Snow's record at Lords is worse than his career
record.
Andrew Dunford
"Mike Holmans" <mi...@jackalope.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:h29g51l54pv26ek7h...@4ax.com...
> According to some of the papers this morning, snow delayed the start
> of the English season at Lord's yesterday. I left after the third
> inspection, but when I returned this morning, the people I knew who'd
> stayed on said that it was hail which drove the players from the pitch
> before they could actually manage to bowl a ball.
Tell us a bit about the refurbishment of the pavilion, please.
Andrew
webbo
wedding
Mike Holmans
<adun...@artifax.net> tapped the keyboard and brought forth:
The unanimous opinion of those who have been at Lord's these last
three days is that they've done a superb job.
It's obvious that just about all the furniture is new, and so are the
carpets, but it's not flashy: they haven't gone for the faux Edwardian
overstuffed leather and evocation of pre-WW1 clubland, but a subdued
art deco. It feels a lot more spacious than before, even though the
rooms are still the same size: there's less clutter, and in each room
the bits all work in harmony rather than being a jumbled melange.
The biggest innovation is on the top deck. The top decks of the
towers, which in the ancient days before the Starship Media Centre was
moored at the other end of the ground housed the media studios and
commentary positions, have been converted into seating/standing areas
(although frankly the view of the pitch from anywhere other than the
very front of them is awful because there's other bits of the Pav in
the way). The top shelf seating is the same, but instead of a solid
wall at the back, it's now glass and there's a fairly substantial
terrace behind it; on major match days there will be bars open at each
end and one will be able to mill about at the back, have a drink, and
still see the cricket. Today, there was a strong breeze which made
overcoats necessary on the top shelf itself, but the terrace turned
out to be pretty calm and with the sun out it was almost pleasantly
there and the view was excellent.
The other very noticeable change is to the Long Room. There used to be
a couple of display cases which stuck out: they have been replaced by
fireplaces (with gas fires, not coal ones), and they've knocked a
double door in the middle which communicates with the Long Bar behind,
so there is now an area in the Long Bar from which one can get a view
of the cricket; I don't know whether they'll allow that door to be
open during a Test: I'd guess that would be a bad idea, but even if
it's closed it will be possible to keep a weather eye on proceedings.
That's if you don't have a view of one of the vast number of large
flat-screen TVs which are all over the place: there are even small TV
monitors above the urinals in the refurbished gents' downstairs so
people will be able to see England collpasing while they pee. (My wife
and my friend Jane tell me that the ladies' facility is spectacularly
good, and that they would quite happily live there if they'd just
install a small kitchen.)
The paintings around the building have been hung with a bit more logic
than there was before, and there's been a bit of quality control too.
When they had Keith Miller's portrait hanging above the home players'
Long Room exit, it looked as though he was straining on the toilet;
he's moved to eye level in the Long Bar and looks a great deal less
distressed as a result. Anyone who was unfortunate enough to see the
horrible acrylic disaster depicting the 2001 Australians having tea
with Her Maj will be relieved to know that it is nowhere in sight, and
they've dug out a very nice bunch of eighteenth and early nineteenth
century paintings of scenes with cricket in them, some of which are
delightful. On the south stairs, there is a wonderful portrait which
I'd never seen before of SF Barnes: it's not an action picture, just a
standing figure with a ball in his fingers, but this ramrod-straight
middle-aged man seems to be looking slightly down as if to say "If you
*really* think you're going to score any runs off *me*, you are *very*
much mistaken." One complaint - ee're not very pleased with the
Bowlers' Bar, which has now got rather nasty portraits of EW Swanton
and C Aubrey Smith hanging in it, and will be lobbying to have back
the impressionistic pictures of bowlers which were hanging there last
season.
There's also been some attention to detail with the furnishings and
fittings. The ledges and shelves and tables and chairs used to be of
slightly incompatible or uncomfortable heights. Now you find that when
you want to put down your glass or cup, the tabletop or ledge is just
about exactly where you want it to be, and that when you look through
the window from a normal sitting position, you can actually see the
pitch properly (my favourite counter-example of that was the new
members' lounge at Canterbury, which was a brilliant suite until you
sat down on one of the stools at the front to watch the cricket and
found you were looking straight at a six-inch wide metal bar - the
architects had been far too concerned with how to make it a great
conference suite to consider what would happen when people wanted to
look outside instead of marvelling at the architect's furniture design
expertise).
It's cost a great deal, as Members contemplating the increased
subscription rates know, but it looks as though it's been god value
for money.
All in all, it's yet another example of the amazing way in which MCC
has managed over the last 15 years or so to use modern technology,
materials and construction methods to produce something which is both
brand spanking new and clearly part of a long-established and
well-loved tradition and history.
Cheers,
Mike
Andrew Dunford
<snip>
> there are even small TV
> monitors above the urinals in the refurbished gents' downstairs so
> people will be able to see England collpasing while they pee.
Clearly this is the piss de resistance of the entire refurbishment project.
I have lost count of the number of times I've nearly suffered a nasty
accident involving a urinal and a radio earphone cable.
<snip>
Andrew
Mike Holmans
on the last day, leaving MCC two sessions to get 296 to win, which they
did at a canter, mostly thanks to a very benign pitch, Alastair Cook
and Andy Flower.
So, after we got bored of saying how marvellous the new Pavilion
refurbishments were, and how outrageous the price hike on the booze has
been, conversation turned to England's Ashes prospects. One chap I
talked to was prepared to go as far as "Well, if they pick up an injury
or two, like, and we play to the best of our ability, well, you never
know what might happen, do you?" but the otherwise unanimous opinion
was that it was simply a question of how badly we are going to lose.
"And if we have to play on pitches like that one out there, we needn't
even bother turning up. What the bloody hell does Mickey Hunt think
he's doing preparing things like that? You can't have a decent game of
cricket if the bowlers have no chance at all."
So this match gave us little insight into the bowlers-in-waiting, but
allowed us to make some acquaintance with the bats-to-be after their
educational winter away, principally Alastair Cook and Matt Prior.
I'm keener on Prior's immediate future than Cook's, although I can see
that Cook could turn out to be the more important of the two in the
long run.
I understand why Vaughan and Fletcher are keen on Geraint Jones. He's
played a few innings for England which have been hugely impressive:
he's never going to be a Gilchrist, but there have been flashes
suggesting he could get quite close. But it's only been flashes, and
there's been a great deal of disappointing batting to bring the focus
back to his awful keeping.
Prior isn't Chris Read behind the stumps, but he looks a bit more
assured there than Jones the Drop. While he was batting, I was most
reminded of Allan Lamb, though thinking about it later I realise that I
should really have been reminded of Rod Marsh. Perhaps Prior should
grow a moustache. If he starts the season with Sussex well, I shall
probably spend the summer grumbling about how he should be in the
England side now: I'm happier with the idea of an alleged number seven
who regularly contributes 30s and 40s than one who might get a ton but
is much more likely to hole out for 7.
I won't, though, be pushing for Cook's immediate elevation. I can
certainly see what the fuss is about and why his backers have been
saying he has a wonderful talent. He's a tall left-hander who stands
fairly upright at the crease and plays in a pretty classical style. He
middles the ball a lot and hits with conviction and decent power. But
watching him batting with Andy Flower from the top deck yesterday, you
could see the difference between a young, talented player and an old
experienced player.
Cook was hitting five balls an over, but nearly all his shots went
straight to fielders; he only managed to score when he managed to hit
it just wide of one and very hard. Flower only bothered to play an
attacking stroke about twice an over, but just about every one
perfectly bisected the gap between two fielders and yielded easy runs.
Cook needs a barrel-load of experience in playing against packed
off-side fields before he'll be able to do anything at international
level: he's just too easy to tie down at present. But when he learns to
miss fielders by ten degrees rather than two, he could well be quite a
player.
Cheers,
Mike