A
few hours before the start of the fourth and final day’s play in the second
Test I got an insight into what it is like to be Shane Watson. It was when an
earthquake struck Wellington, 6.5 on the Richter Scale. Measured by the
alternative fast bowlers’ scale of earthquake power it was at least a Glenn
McGrath—penetrating, disconcerting and getting movement where it was least
expected. It may even have been a Jimmy Anderson, with dangerous swing a
threat. One day Jeff Thomson will open
from the Harbour End while Shoaib Akhtar steams in from the Island Bay End, but
not this time.
I
was in the gym at the time, which, as friends have been kind enough to mention,
means that two exceptionally improbable events coincided. The MCC Civil Defence Manual is clear enough
on the course of action in these circumstances: drop, cover and hold. Which is
all very well, but on the day of the game conditions are never quite as ordered
as they are in the coaching book. There was no desk or table to dive under; my
treadmill was next to a large, shatterable window, so dropping where I was did
not seem a sensible option.
So
I attempted to make my way across the undulating floor towards the shelter of
the doorframe. This is the civil defence equivalent of plonking your leg down
the line of middle-and-off and playing across right across an inswinger. You
know it won’t work, that you’ll be plumb lbw, yet you can’t stop yourself. I
feel your pain, Shane.
Besides,
even had I made it, I would have taken space that others coming after me might
have made better use of. A bit like using up a DRS review on a decision that
even someone in the bar at deep square leg can see is out. Moral of the story:
don’t stand next to Shane Watson in an earthquake.
Watching
a Test at Lord’s has an added pleasure quotient, even on television from this
distance. The first match I watched there was the Gillette Cup final of 1967
between Kent and Somerset. From the early seventies until I left for New
Zealand in 1997 there can only have been a handful of seasons in which I did
not visit the ground. I watched three World Cup finals there, plus numerous
domestic one-day finals, plenty of Tests and a good deal of county cricket
(which was always a bit odd, like a busker playing in the Albert Hall, but it
was an opportunity to watch from the pavilion, even if was necessary to put on
a jacket and tie to do so).
Lord’s
has changed a good deal in the 16 years since I was last there, much more so since
my first visit thirty years before that; the new grandstand and the media
centre have both appeared since ’97, but seem so familiar thanks to television
coverage. MCC has done a fine job in modernising Lord’s while retaining its
character as a cricket ground. Compare that to the Australian experience. The
Gabba and the MCG have been turned into characterless bowls, and the SCG and
the Adelaide Oval are on the way to being so.
Another
reason why Lord’s is by some way the best Test venue in the UK is MCC’s
intolerance. “Intolerant since 1787” might be the motto of the club, translated
into Latin obviously (my Blean Correspondent will assist here), and for much of
its history it has been an entirely reprehensible characteristic, shamefully
racist, sexist and class-ridden. But now the MCC grandees have learned to use
their intolerance for the common good, and are exercising it purposefully, for
among its targets are ersatz patriotism, fancy dress and community jollity.
The
playing of national anthems at the start of the game is fairly new to cricket.
The Australians are to blame I think; I recall standing for the anthems for the
first time when I attended the final Test of the 1998/9 series in Sydney and
thinking how odd it was. It doesn’t suit the rhythm of cricket, especially for
opening batsmen about to face a Test attack. For unfathomable reasons, the
ceremony as often as not begins with the two teams walking onto the ground with
each player hand-in-hand with a child. Invariably the cricketer is at a
distance and bearing an expression that suggests the suspicion that the child
is carrying leprosy, while the child has the sullenness of any contemporary
youth who is a) awake and b) deprived of their on-line gaming device. Nothing
could be further from the idyllic spirit that it presumably is intended to
symbolise.
MCC
sees this for the nonsense it is. Lord’s spared us God Save the Queen and gave us instead…the Queen. We also managed
without the Jerusalem, Parry’s
arrangement of four stupid questions from Blake about whether Jesus visited
Glastonbury, the answer to all of which is clearly “no”. As the TMS commentator
Don Mosey pointed out years ago, it is poorly chosen for community singing as
it contains one note—on “built” in the penultimate line—that few untrained singers
can reach.
And
fancy dress (the sporting of which is defined in my dictionary as “a sad attempt
to fabricate wit by those who have none”) is also out, unless, of course, it is
in club colours and purchased by members from the Lord’s shop. The result is a
wonderfully peaceful atmosphere characterised by an intelligent murmuring, a
sound recently described by Simon Hoggart (about the House of Lords) as being that
of “a basketful of puppies waking up”.
No
wonder tickets for Lord’s Tests sell out faster than anywhere else, even though
they charge the national debt for them. A pity that all the good cricket came from
the home team this year. The Australians could pray for an earthquake.
