Lord's Test Match

There is a halo surrounding the Lord's cricket ground for cricketers and followers. It is called the Mecca of cricket and therefore visiting Lord's is like a pilgrimage. If you look at it really rationally, this is just another cricket ground with a 22-yard strip and the ground is not even perfect, it has that dreaded slope from one side of the pitch to another. But there is an awful lot of history behind this and trust the Brits to make a huge drama out of anything that remotely has any history. Having said that, I agree that because of all these traditions and stories a visit to the ground is magical.


I had the fortune of visiting this ground in June 1986, when India played the first test match of that tour at Lord's. As luck would have it, India won that test match. I was doing a project for TCS at Citibank in London and there were a bunch of us from the same batch in UK at that time. We decided to go and visit the game on day 3 , a Saturday. The previous day India had started the batting in theor first innings and Sunil Gavaskar was not out overnight. He had not scored a century at Lord's ground and all of us were hoping that he would get one on that day. The discussion on the tube journey to the ground were so animated (and loud) that we got under the skin of some Brits who were also going to see the game. One of them even said that or friends here believe that Sunny Gavaskar is going to score a century today. Unfortunately as we settled down and getting used to the game, Sunny got out. Those days, there were no live action replays in the stadium and we had to wait till the evening to watch the highlights on BBC to figure out how Sunny got out. The disappointment of that dismissal was more than compensated by Dilip Vengasarkar, who scored a ton. This was a classic test match century and hats of to Dilip on scoring three centuries on the trot at this famous venue.

The atmosphere at Lord's is almost like a picninc. Most people come prepared with food and there is plenty of food and drinks available for sale. The whole day is spent in eating and drinking and getting some sunlight. Watching cricket is an aside for these folks. In the afternoon the entertainment was provided by a lady on the terrace of the building behind our stands. She wished Richie Benaud, who was on television commentary team with a message and did a little act of strip tease.

The stadium is superb and one can walk around the stands to catch up glimpses of history. I was thrilled to see the balcony where Kapil Dev had stood with the Prudential World Cup trophy in his hands in 1983. Great time and great memories.

Scorecard at Cricinfo: http://ind.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1986/IND_IN_ENG/IND_ENG_T1_05-10JUN1986.html

Test Match Cricket

I am a great fan of cricket in general and classic test match cricket in particular. Test matches can be quite dull at times but with the introduction of the new 90 overs per day rule, the game has become very aggressive and very often we see a result by the end of 4th day. The thing that excites me most in test cricket is the mind games that the captain and the bowler plays to out fox the opposing team. The subtle change in field placements, a change in the bowler or a go at the batsman's patience using various tactics make the game very intersting to watch. (If you watch it intently and follow what the skipper is trying to do that is). It is the classic edition of the cricket and in my opinion this form of the game will survive all the tides of time.




I still recall my childhood days when there were 2 may be 3 series played in a year and the only way to follow your team was through radio commentary or the newsprint. I used to have an album of photos from various newspapers, cut from our own copy, from the neighbour's copy and at times from the 'raddi' that the local shopkeeper had to wrap the groceries. It was fun. The radio commentary brought with it the commentators who could paint the picture for the listeners using their vivid imagination and word play. I got my first cricket book from a petrol pump as a free gift and the most important part of that book was the field placements. That map was the reference while listening to the commentary till I memorised the various positions.

The history of test match cricket is replete with some great rivalries like the Ashes series, the India-Pakistan series or the India-Australia encounters off late. I will write about some that I like the most in my next post.