That Bloke In The Big Smoke

I wish there was a job that existed along the lines of "Professional Sport Armchair Spectator" because not only would I be very good at it, but I'd also bring two decades worth of extensive work experience. It occurred to me that in the past ten days, I have been smothered with at least one match/race of all the sports and teams which I follow and/or love. Starting with cricket, India and England have been in action, in football both England and Liverpool have flattered to deceive (as usual), Federer's lost at the US Open, Usain Bolt got disqualified from one race, won another and helped set a world record in a third, while the Rugby World Cup got underway and Sebastian Vettel won yet another Formula One race. Sportsgasmic!

(This post was inspired by a similar one about the riots from a couple weeks ago. Enjoy!)

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Poor preparation; England's bowling superiority; England's batting superiority; England's fielding superiority; England's coaching superiority; World Cup hangover; IPL hangover; Foreign tour syndrome; Bouncy pitches; Lateral movement; reverse swing; normal swing; chin music; fast bowling; slow bowling

The Lord's slope; English weather; Boredom; New ball; Old ball; Green pitches; Weight of expectations; Unrealistic expectations; Sunil Gavaskar's commentary; Michael Vaughan's tweets; Joey Barton's tweets; TMS; HotSpot; DRS; Back-to-back Tests; Back-to-back Tours

Anna Hazare; Full-capacity Test crowds; Arul Suppiah; Raina's misleading century against Somerset; Zak's injury; Harbhajan Singh; Charl Willoughby; Stuart Broad's hat-trick; Pietersen's double-century; Cook's double-century; Prior's stump commentary; Lack of fitness; SRT's 100th international century; Ishant's line and length; Sreesanth; Sehwag's hearing; Sehwag's shoulder; Sehwag's approach to batting;

Hostile Trent Bridge crowd; Bell-gate; On-field umpires; Off-field umpires; The Laws of the Game; Corruption in India; RP Singh; Mishra's no-balls; Impatience; Lack of application; Balls bouncing above knee height; bouncers; yorkers; length deliveries; off-breaks; the one that straightens; innocuous deliveries; Ian Bell; the BCCI; Overcommercialisation; Ian Botham; the Top ranking; the 2000th Test; the 100th Test

The England riots; Duncan Fletcher's humour; the media; the experts; player sponsorships; too much wealth; lack of patriotism; physical exhaustion; mental exhaustion; Ishant's haircut; Strauss's captaincy; Dhoni's captaincy; dropped catches; hands in pockets; bad luck; shit happens; somewhere in the world, a butterfly flapped its wings

Does that cover everything?

I suppose when a cricket fan decides to make their Test debut as a spectator having followed the game with a religious passion for nearly twenty years, it seems only fitting to pick an occasion that turns out to be the biggest ever crowd for the last day's play of a Test at Lord's, the home of the world's greatest sport. And so it was for me last week Monday. The record books will show that England outplayed India comprehensively but as far as experiences go, few will match the pure joy that was 25 July 2011. It felt special from the moment the ticket prices were announced the evening before and the response online was immediate. I knew it was going to be a big crowd but I never imagined people would be turned away because it was full! It wasn't as bad as Old Trafford in 2005 but for the biggest ground in England, this was something new. At £20, boy was it worth it!

(If you missed the panoramic views of my day out at Lord's that I posted about a week ago, you can view them here).


By the time I arrived at St John's Wood tube station around eight, the queue had already snaked itself in an orderly fashion half a mile from the ground and onto Circus Road (as pictured above). Ticket sales were to begin at half-eight, gates to open at nine and play to start at eleven. And as the rate of people joining the queue behind us increased after my arrival, I'm fairly sure it eventually ended up close to a mile long.


The queues were so long because the MCC wanted to negate the effect of touts buying tickets in bulk. I'm led to believe the MCC normally sells a maximum of four tickets per person on Day Five at Lord's but for today they sold a maximum of one per person. And with free entry for Under-16s who had just embarked on their summer vacation, a lot of young fans could be seen waiting patiently with the rest of us. Stood in front of me was an Indian gentleman who was also attending his first Test at Lord's but he had arrived in London just for the match alone from Dubai. The lucky bugger didn't have any tickets until ten days before the first day's play but his English manager at work (he was employed with Willis Group Holdings) suggested writing to the MCC. He did and they got him tickets for the first four days and then he queued for the fifth!

( 23 More Pics From A Great Day Out ... with Commentary! )

270 runs, 10 wickets. England should win and India only have themselves to blame. Our only hope is to bat better and salvage a draw, while the Poms should score 275 runs tomorrow and then declare. [SCORECARD]

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Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's infamous spin doctor, was the guest on TMS at tea time. Fascinating stuff as usual. Big cricket fan. Was at the match today by invitation of Beefy Botham's son and future daughter-in-law and hence sat in their private box. He grew up in Yorkshire so he was a big fan of Geoffrey Boycott. Even set up one of the earliest fan clubs for the great opening batsman and was at Headingley in 1977 when Boycs scored his 100th first-class century at his home ground. Then Aggers mentioned Ed Miliband as another chap who hero worshipped GB and was also present at Headingley in 1977. So I did the natural thing and googled this golden nugget of news. Turns out Ed Milibean even skipped a day at school to watch Geoffrey's final innings at Lord's. Still not endeared to his politics but he's definitely gone up in my estimation. Aggers then nudged the Sultan of Spin to use his "professional skills" (or words to that effect) to market Test cricket in the modern-age. Campbell played a straight bat and offered some interesting suggestions none of which I can remember right now but they seemed sensible at the time. As angry as I am with him vis-a-vis the Iraq War dossier/Dr David Kelly etc, I am intrigued as to his ability in promoting the longer-form of the game using his undeniable talents.

It's not quite the end of day's play yet but I doubt they'll return before tomorrow morning. How disappointing the rain and bad light have played spoilsport, though as an Indian cricket fan it's probably a good thing. Hopefully Zaheer's injury is not as serious as it looked when he winced off the field in pain with a twinge behind his right leg. A hamstring perhaps? With Sehwag already out until the third test, Zak's exit will ruin our series chances.

Dhoni won a good toss and I was happy he put England in to bat. I thought we bowled well without much luck in the first session. Perhaps the lack of experience of bowling in such conditions worked against Kumar and Sharma who couldn't control the pronounced movement, both in the air and particularly off the pitch. Kumar especially seemed to start off really well but tailed off as the session went on. We also suffered from the lack of a genuinely quick opening bowler to make use of the new ball and overcast conditions. Nevertheless, it was no surprise Zaheer secured the first breakthrough with a fantastic delivery to trap Alistair Cook in front. The TMS commentators questioned whether the ball had done too much but the replays showed it would've probably still hit the top of middle and leg. At lunch it was pretty even at 1/43 with Strauss playing Khan fairly comfortably.

After lunch India gave away a few cheap runs before Zaheer Khan surprised Strauss with his first bouncer of the day. It was a clever delivery and resulted in yet another scalp reading "Strauss c whoever b Khan", though as one tweeter pointed out, such a dismissal could have repercussions both for the IMF and the French Presidency. The wicket put the breaks on the English scoring rate and just when it seemed like we were getting into the groove, Zaheer pulled up with yet another injury and the two South African-born English batsmen built up a fifty-plus partnership. There were a couple of tough chances put down and a couple direct hit run-out opportunities, but England did well to battle their way to 2/127 before bad light enforced an early tea break. This was followed by a downpour which kept the players off the field for even longer but apparently it has stopped, the covers are off and the umpires will inspect the pitch in a bit. I doubt they'll come back on with only an hour left but ye never know. On balance, England have the edge and India will be praying Zaheer returns.

EDIT @ 1825:
I have been proven wrong as the players are back out on the field and will attempt to deliver 13.4 overs by the closing time of 1930. I didn't realise they could play until then. It's still gloomy but the floodlights are still on.

EDIT @ 1826:
Oh. The covers are apparently back on, the players and umpires are running off... and that seems that. Well, that re-start ended almost as quickly as it began. Onto tomorrow!