Lord's

State-school cricket at Lord’s? Bring it on

A state-school cricket competition announced last week with a final at Lord’s is such a good idea you wonder why it has taken until now for someone to come up with it. Ever since Lord (George) Byron convinced the authorities to allow the first Eton vs Harrow match to be played at Lord’s in 1805, the public schools have monopolised the cricket played on the game’s most celebrated turf. Byron himself, although crippled with dysplasia and a deformed right foot, played for Harrow in that match and afterwards went to the West End to ‘kick up a convivial row in the Haymarket Theatre’. The new T20 competition was launched at

The legendary food at Lord’s

Whatever the problems faced by England’s Test cricketers on the field lately – and they are legion – the players know that one thing at least will go right in this week’s match against New Zealand at Lord’s: the food. The fare at the home of cricket is legendary. Ex-England and Middlesex batsman Mark Ramprakash says that in county matches he and his team-mates would sometimes deliberately get out just before lunch so they could ‘pile into’ the food. Even the two batsmen who were still in would promise each other, as they walked back out to resume play, that they wouldn’t run quick singles for a while. David Lloyd’s