Ashes Poetry

From capital to capital, Cardiff to London. The difference could hardly be greater. It was the first test ever in Wales as well as the series, whereas although any test at Lord’s is significant, especially against Australia, it was when all is said and done, just another test.  There were no signs directing people to Thomas Lord’s third ground, no meeters and greeters along the way, because people have been trekking to one or another of Thos Lord’s three grounds since 1787.

Perhaps it’s become too much of a habit. Watching this test match – packed house all five days, the keenest of matches watched and reported worldwide, front page news in each antipodes - you’d have no idea that the very existence of test match cricket is under threat. You’d think it was the only form of the game played, and the limited over stuff (what Brian Close memorably called ‘Slap and Tickle’ at its start) had the limited life-expectancy or consequence. Nothing could be further from the truth. Freddy Flintoff, Ashes hero incarnate, is giving up test cricket at the end of the series to continue One Day Internationals and T20 leagues, which is more than fair enough given the punishment his body’s endured for the sake of England, but this option would never have available to a generation ago. The fact that India is the world cricketing power on and off the pitch is also quitely forgotten while this Ashes series is on – ‘How do you feel about the two next best sides battling it out in Wales?’ I asked Vendat who served me in M&S Just Food outlet next to Cardiff Rail Station. He smiled.

The MCC World Cricket Committee calls for a test championship http://www.lords.org/latest-news/news-archive/wcc-call-for-world-test-championship,1377,NS.html not so much as because there should be one but because of pressure without…

“The committee is deeply concerned that the proliferation of lucrative domestic Twenty20 leagues, such as the Indian Premier League, will lead to the premature retirement of quality international cricketers.”

Qua Flintoff. Pink balls, day-night is all fine and dandy, but what of the championship itself? No one’s clear on that, but it seems they reckon on something like a World Cup… why not a league, with divisions, and each game scores points – one for participating, two for a home draw, three for away draw, four home win, five away win.  This would ensure teams went for victory, and encourage participation – why not Wales, Scotland and Ireland, not to mention Holland, playing in lower divisions.

There is a deeper concern if not threat, if not to cricket, then to Lord’s and the MCC.  Suppose you’d like to become a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club? http://www.lords.org/mcc/membership/ Unless you’re a pretty decent player it’s a seventeen year waiting list, starting at 17, which means the minimum age of members is 34. There is no junior MCC, unlike county clubs for countless years - I became a junior A member of Gloucestershire at the age of nine in 1962 for 10/6d or half-a-guinea if you were posh. You also need to be nominated by four MCC members, so if you don’t know any, tough. Given we’re all living longer, so too the waiting list and age of the membership. It’s hard to see how the MCC will garner new blood, which is fine, but doesn’t sit too well with its self-proclaimed title of ‘home of cricket’ while the pavilion as ‘the cathedral of cricket’ is a poor joke – anyone may enter a cathedral.

Anyone can enter Harry Morgan’s, the best New York deli outside New York. Just round the corner from Lord’s on St John’s High Street, it’s been done up. For the Russians apparently, who like a decent blini or two. In the Australian team are Hilfenhaus, Horitz and Kadich, all good central European names. While England have Strauss, Pietersen – South African – and Flintoff – Viking, name me an England or county cricketer from central Europe; Dimitri Mascarenhas of Hampshire is the closest. And if you’re after dosh, why Sir Alan Stanford, while loads of loaded Russians are already here in London?

If you’re poor it’s different. There are many parts of London which are no-go areas from other areas, especially if you’re young. Either through fear of gangs or other gangs or the police moving you on. It might be West Side Story in txt, mobile phones and rap but it isn’t Lord’s and it’s certainly isn’t cricket. If you wore a hoodie, how would you view those who wear the bacon and egg stripey ties in NW1? An anthropologist may draw no difference between the MCC and a street gang, perhaps noting that the MCC is more enduring due to a written constitution, ability to be socially accepted and control of assets.

This article might well have barred my ever becoming a member of the MCC, if not a street gang, (though I’d probably play the Groucho Marx card of not wishing to join a club which would have me as a member) and I’d probably forgive Marylebone Cricket Club pretty well everything if their members understood the basics of the game. One asked me after turning up after lunch ‘How many overs is it to a new ball?’ ‘Eighty,’ I replied. Should have said 98.6 or the sterling/euro exchange rate, whichever’s lower.

Maybe I’m too prissy too. A joy of going to watch cricket is meeting other cricket-lovers, but the English, especially the middle-class, especially in London, find it hard to talk to people they don’t know (and for all I know they find it just as hard to talk to those they do.) After five days I found myself slipping into the habit. A simple start to making the home of cricket more homely would be for the announcer to announce near the start of play, ‘They’ll be people around you who you don’t know. Why not say hello, shake hands, and enjoy each other’s company as part of your day at Lord’s?  Feel at home at the home of cricket.’