Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.)

Our eternal lack of enthusiasm for doing absolutely anything before a stipulated time or date meant there were only about nine tickets left for the Old Trafford Ashes Test by the time we got round to ordering. This meant that we ended up near the top of the temporary stand.

Old Trafford has had a recurring temporary stand for many years. It is currently on the south side of the ground, square on to the wicket, but it used to materialise one step anti-clockwise where there is now a permanent two-tier stand. The two-tier stand also used to be one step anti-clockwise, on the east side of the ground, square on to the action before the pitch was rotated 90 degrees. (Or at least we think it was. It can be surprisingly hard to maintain your bearings at Old Trafford given all the moving of stands and pitches.)

In recent years, the temporary stand seems to have grown larger and more terrifying, as you can see in this photo by friend of the site, Adam Collins.

Before we got to the temporary stand, we of course first had to park. We aimed for the nearby school which always offers match day parking.

Upon arrival, we realised that the school doesn’t in fact always offer match day parking, because sometimes – such as on a Wednesday – it is a school.

We therefore instead manoevred our way to Kings Road on the other side of the tram tracks to park near Morrissey’s old house. There is quite a lot of permit-only parking in this area, so Special Correspondent Mum knocked on someone’s door to double-check we were okay to leave our car outside their house. The man who answered not only said it was fine, he then rather unexpectedly offered to drive us the short distance to the ground. We felt this was a kindness too far and politely declined.

Arriving at the ground and ascending to our designated spots for the day, it was hard not to notice that the distance between amenities and seats was large and the journey steep. This is something you’ll want to factor into your match-watching behaviour. There are no quick toilet trips from the top of the temporary stand. Rush down to the bar at a break in play and you’ll inevitably end up at the back of the queue. The name of the game is consolidation. Never acquire more liquids to go in without first taking care of the liquids that need to go out during the same sortie.

We’re not sure the lads in front abided by this simple rule. One in particular adopted our “repeat until funny” mantra, deploying the phrase, “It doesn’t get any easier,” each and every time he returned.

On the plus side, the top of the temporary stand is quite a good vantage point from which to monitor queue lengths.

More distractingly, it is also a good vantage point from which to identify hills you know or houses you’ve lived in.

“I think that’s Croker Hill. And then that one’s Shutlingsloe – “The Matterhorn of Cheshire.” And then, oh what was that? Is he out?”

A certain amount of cricket was also missed while standing in the incredibly long queue at the sole cask ale tent where many an admiring glance or comment was again drawn by The Device.

The sole cask ale tent was so insanely popular, it was no surprise to see a sign in place warning would-be customers that it was going to inexplicably close for the day at the tea break.

We felt double lucky that we got to spend £6.60 a pint there because while walking towards it we were PHYSICALLY MANHANDLED ASIDE BY GLENN MCGRATH AND NARROWLY AVOIDED DEATH.

“Sorry mate,” the beanpole seamer hissed in our ear as he BRUTALLY PALMED US ASIDE by applying modest pressure to our upper arm while clearly late for a commentary stint. Fortunately, we remained upright and promptly went and spent a small fortune on beer while we still could.

Coincidentally, at that very same moment at the opposite side of the ground, Special Correspondent Tim was saying hello to a passing Moeen Ali and getting a nod in return. These twin encounters highlight the innate decency of England players versus the innate awfulness of the Australians.

As inevitably as empty pint pots follow full ones, the afternoon session brought the first beer snakes. Recent player comments about “northern crowds” has made us wonder whether all of our readers know the ins and outs of beer snake culture – such as the fact that these slithering sticky beasts have at least two songs devoted to them.

There is of course the classic, percussive chant: “Feed. The. Snake… Feed. The. Snake…”

But there is also the more melodic: “Feeeed the snake. Feeeed the snake. Feeeed the snake and he will grow,” which we rather like. (The beer snake’s preferred pronoun is ‘he’. We would be interested to know whether beer snakes at women’s matches are ‘she’. Perhaps someone could look into this for us.)

It was from around this point onwards that we were struck by another advantage of being very high up in the temporary stand. The higher you are, the fewer empties there are behind you to be flung over or into your head.

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Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.)

Regular King Cricket contributor Ged Ladd writes…

The self-styled Heavy Rollers, under the leadership of Charley The Gent Malloy and Nigel Father Barry, have been gracing Test matches, primarily at Edgbaston, since the last century.

But it is a new era of Test cricket now; an era without caution, an era without backward steps, an era of selfless decision-making on behalf of the team, an era of fearlessness.

In short, an era where Ged Ladd has assumed the central picnic production duties for Edgbaston.

This is a massive change.

Admittedly, visits to Lord’s have been graced with Ged’s picnics for decades, but Lord’s is home to Ged. Edgbaston, being away, has always been, until now, someone else’s picnic. For the first decade or more, David “Peel” Steed would do the honours; in more recent years, Mrs Malloy would load up Charley The Gent’s quality motor with several months’ worth of grub for our two-day trip.

The way in this new era is for me to arrange to stay in an Airbnb, with a kitchenette on hand, enabling me to make a fresh picnic each day.

On this occasion, we had four Rollers: me, Charley, Nigel and Harsha Goble. I decided to focus on vegetarian grub, as Harsha is strictly veggie and the others are both partial to cheese, egg and legumes.

Cheese sandwiches, spiced up with mango chutney, have now become a firm favourite and I’ll no doubt struggle to wean the lads off that recipe if I fancy a change. I also made up slightly spicy egg mayonnaise sandwiches, using tabasco as the spice. I think I should have gone a bit more spicy for Harsha, who tends to quote lines from the “Going For An English” Bland Sketch if the food get a little insipid. In addition, some falafel ball salads, plus grapes and strawberries.

The thing that hasn’t changed in this new era is the Birmingham rain. We tried quite hard to avoid getting soaked, but both days we were at the ground, we were caught out by heavy showers, ending up like the result of a Laurel and Hardy water fight sketch.

Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.)

King Cricket contributor Sam Blackledge writes…

‘Meeting People is Easy’, according to a seminal late-90s fly-on-the-wall documentary following the touring exploits of chart-topping indie beat combo, Radiohead. It was a title dripping in irony sauce, Thom Yorke and co being famously introverted and socially awkward.

The Oxford-born rockers are rarely associated with cricket – this superb piece by Jonathan Liew aside – but they came to mind as I took my seat on a humid, sultry Saturday morning at Edgbaston.

Either side, my nearest and dearest. Easily navigated; a lifetime of shared memories in these very stands have built up something of a cricketing shorthand. We told misty-eyed tales of Reeve and Woolmer; Lara’s 501; Kasprowicz’s glove in ‘05; and an entire day lost to rain this time last year. 

To the front and further along our row, vague acquaintances, many of whom I hadn’t seen since the release of OK Computer. Handshakes and pleasantries were exchanged; rail and motorway anecdotes recounted; app-based weather forecasts pored over. 

Lunchtime approached and I made my excuses. You see, I had an appointment to see a man about a blog. I checked my phone. ‘We’re here!’ the text message cheerily announced. ‘Ragland Stand, block 6, row E.’

Elbowing my way through the Fred Flinstones, banana suits and 118 118 men (yes, bizarrely, they are still very much a thing), I reached my destination. There he was, unmistakeable, resplendent in purple, a comment section giant made flesh. The artist formerly known as Ged Ladd. 

I don’t mind admitting I was slightly nervous. We had only ever met once before ‘IRL’, in Chorlton circa 2019, as briefly mentioned here. I needn’t have worried, of course. Any friend of King Cricket is a friend of Ged’s.

I was swiftly introduced to Harsha Ghoble, Nigel ‘Father Barry’, and the famous Daisy. It was not dissimilar, I would imagine, to walking the red carpet at a fancy awards do. The dawning realisation that these characters from the internet, with their enigmatic noms de plume, are actually living, breathing humans, with faces and hands and lunchboxes packed with, as far as I could tell, 90 per cent salad. 

We took some photos for posterity. Because as we all know, if you ain’t got pics, it didn’t happen. 

Satisfied that I had overcome introversion, social awkwardness and the lunchtime rush, I made my excuses and headed back to base.

‘Jonny-Two-Phones’ appeared just I was leaving. I’m sure if he wants to get hold of me, he will find a way. 

Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.)

Regular King Cricket contributor Ged Ladd writes…

Daisy had especially enjoyed the relaxed vibe of our Sunday at the India Test in the “crowds but not full crowds” pandemic summer of 2021.

“Can we sit in the same place again?” she asked, ahead of the Platty Joobs Test.

The Lower Tavern Stand – the least fashionable members and friends area.

I made a beeline for that place on arrival. Despite a plethora of reservations in that area, I found the same seats as we had used the previous year, unreserved. We grabbed those.

“This isn’t the stand we sat in last year,” said Daisy. “The one we sat in last year was much smaller”.

“It was less densely populated,” I said. “Not only is this the same stand, I think these are the exact same seats.”

Daisy protested.

I tried using evidence to prove my point – in particular a double-selfie of me and Daisy in the same spot the previous year.

The evidence was pretty convincing to those sitting around us, who were starting to take an interest in our debate. Daisy mumbled about deep fakes and other unspecified uncertainties.

On the way home, Daisy said she’d had a lovely day and commented on the relatively relaxed vibe in the Lower Tavern Stand… just as she had done the previous year.

Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.)

Balladeer writes…

I haven’t actually been to the cricket that much. You could count the number of visits on one hand and have change, and that’s only partly due to the scheduling. It does mean, however, that every game I go to feels like an event – a principle that this blog has cottoned onto and that the international cricket schedule steadfastly ignores.  

Also at every cricket game I’ve been to, there’s been at least one newcomer to the sport, a cricket convert waiting to be made. 

(My previous two visits to Lord’s are recorded in these hallowed webpages here and here. I also attended a Blast game at the Oval with colleagues. There was fire, a woman wore a blue wig, and you couldn’t BYOB and the drinks were grossly overpriced. There’s your bonus mini-match report.)

The party this time then consisted of me, my partner Mummer (see last time), Pevets, and their partner Jongleur. Also marshmallows. (More on those later.)

Pevets is a friend of Latvian origin. Latvia aren’t known for their cricket. Fortunately, Jongleur is more sporty than I am, so persuading the two of them to come along wasn’t the hardest thing in the world. The difficulty would be persuading Pevets that cricket was, in fact, good, when we arrived, something I hadn’t been overly successful at with Mummer last time out. The game’s progress over days 1 and 2 had also left me somewhat worried about how much they’d actually get to see – as had the weather.

On that point at least we were fine. The day proved to be less about dodging rain or bad light, and more about four intensely pale people trying to stay out of the solar glare.

I’d sold first-class cricket to Pevets as, “an excuse for a day-long picnic,” so roughly five minutes after sitting down we cracked open the menu: M&S’ finest to start off the day. Sun-dried tomatoes in focaccia, coronation chicken rolls, and chocolate-chip brioche washed down with thermos-flavoured tea. I don’t know what Jongleur and Pevets had, to my shame, but it won’t have been chocolate-chip brioche. Pevets hates chocolate. Our friendship is built around me offering them chocolate and them threatening to bite me in return.

We’re getting to the marshmallows. Patience.

With supplies on hand, Jongleur doing a much better job of explaining cricket to Pevets than I could hope for, and Mummer resigned, I was able to take in the action on-field and the cheering number of kids brought along. (The number was cheering, the kids were more reserved.) Who says the County Champ is only for the retired? Apart from the ECB and the grim number of days actually played on weekends, that is.

At lunchtime we fled the ever-encroaching sun, from the top of the Edrich to the bottom of the Mound. Tea was replaced by wine, which was replaced by fizz (Home of Corks and all that) and strawberries. Also, finally: marshmallows. You may be wondering, do marshmallows go with fizz? It is my personal opinion that they do not.

Pevets has been known to refer to me as a marshmallow, for my generally sweet and squishy demeanour. I think I go okay with fizz.

Things happened on the field, resulting in an only slightly premature end to what had been an ideal day at the cricket off the field. We decamped to a local pub and took stock. After all that, had we made a cricket convert? Here are three of Pevets’ paraphrased takes on the day.

• “I mostly look up when [Jongleur] makes a noise and miss whatever’s just happened.”
• “I can’t see the ball most of the time.”
• “Not sure if I’m much better at assessing cricket, but I can attest that cricket is a good background noise.”

So: maybe! Hooray! But possibly they’d be more fond of, or at least more likely to follow, pink ball cricket. Even if at this stage the ball has the consistency, as well as the hue, of a marshmallow.

Send your pictures of cricket bats and other cricket stuff in unusual places to king@kingcricket.co.uk. It is more than okay to put the cricket thing in the unusual place yourself if you want.

Regular King Cricket contributor Ged Ladd writes…

Deep within Standard Chartered Bank’s City of London offices, while strolling through an upper floor atrium, I spotted this cricketing effigy in the window of the floor below.

I should point out that I was on those auspicious premises, with colleagues, for a charity fundraising quiz night, which I have written up in excruciating detail on the Ged Ladd & Co website. I was not there on city-slicker, banker-bonus business.

Call me old-fashioned, but standing atop the stumps while executing some sort of a scoopy-swatty shot is not in any cricketing manual that I have ever seen.

Far from standard in my book.

If you’ve got a picture of an animal being conspicuously indifferent to cricket, please send it to king@kingcricket.co.uk.

Daisy writes…

Ged and I went to a supper and talk at Lord’s about the book Being Geoffrey Boycott. Ged has written up the evening.

On arrival, when we first looked out of the window, we saw a fox on that resplendent Lord’s pitch. A magnificent fox, it was. You get a very high class of fox in St John’s Wood.

Ged said that the fox looked indifferent to cricket and that we needed a photograph for King Cricket. But by the time I got my camera/phone out, the fox had wandered off.

This, as depicted in the above picture, might be the first known example of an animal displaying indifference to the idea of displaying indifference towards cricket.

Ged, being a bit of a geek, thought we should nevertheless have a picture of a fox on a cricket pitch for King Cricket readers to see. So Ged collaborated with Dall-E and produced the following picture.

It looks more like a fox stealing a run than an indifferent fox, but still.

Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.)

Ged Ladd submitted this match report what might be termed ‘promptly’. Given the time-sensitivity, we definitely should have published it at the time, but we were moving house or something, so we didn’t. So it goes.

Ged writes…

Whereas the Lord’s Test was a socially-distanced affair, which I attended alone, the Edgbaston Test was designated to be a Government pilot for major events.

Our regular Heavy Rollers gathering was a depleted group for various reasons, further diminished by Charley “The Gent” Malloy’s indisposition (thankfully A lurgy rather than THE lurgy).

Mrs Malloy sent Nigel “Father Barry” a hamper with all the non-perishable foods she had already gathered for our picnic. Harsha Ghoble was our third man at the match.

I took on perishables duties, taking advantage of the kitchen in the Air B’n’B I had chosen.

I procured sandwich components, fruit and refillable plastic water bottles in Leamington, where I stopped for a couple of hours of tennis and lunch with friends on the Wednesday. 

On day one, we sat next to a sweet little older couple. She told us that they had abstained from smuggling in alcohol for the first time this year, as they thought security would be tight. Nigel remarked that security had done for his “thermos method” some years ago. 

“Ah yes,” she said, “but you don’t look like a sweet little old lady.”

We liked them.

The pandemic has wrought havoc, but also forced some improvements. The e-ticketing meant that we got through security and all the additional checks faster than ever at Edgbaston. Similarly, although the Eric Hollies was heaving with beer-swilling folk, the click and collect method kept the queues at the back of the stand modest.

My old friend Jonny Hurst, the soccer Chant Laureate, was in the Eric Hollies on day one. He and I exchanged e-bants during the day.

Nigel got into a muddle with the fruit infusion section of his refillable water bottle, causing the sweet little old lady to guffaw with laughter, which obviously helped Nigel regain his composure.

Beer snakes were “the thing” day one; in the Eric Hollies, naturally, but also the one depicted, in the Raglan.

On day two, a self-important bloke marched around the Raglan, barking orders, in an attempt to build an even bigger snake. Mercifully, security rumbled him, confiscating the skiffs. We saw him still remonstrating with stewards near the exit as we left the ground.

Read more King Cricket match reports

Ged Ladd instructed ChatGPT to write up, three months in advance, the first day of 2023 cricket at Lord’s. The instructions for “The First Day Of The Cricket Season” read, “comedy, 300 words, on no account mention the cricket itself”. Ged supplied ChatGPT with three relevant examples of Ged’s match reports for the King Cricket website. After several attempts, here’s ChatGPT’s best effort. (In keeping with the theme, images in this post were generated by DALL-E.)

ChatGPT writes…

Charley and I had been waiting anxiously for this day for months. It was the first cricket match of the season, and we were determined to make the most of it. As we made our way to the stadium, we couldn’t help but feel a sense of excitement building up inside us.

Once we arrived, we made a beeline for the pavilion, eager to get a good seat. We were in luck, as we managed to snag a spot right in the front row. The view was absolutely breathtaking, and we knew that we were in for a real treat.

As the game began, we settled in and watched as the players took to the field. The action was fast and furious, with both teams giving it their all. The crowd was on their feet, cheering and yelling at every shot and run. It was an electric atmosphere, and we were completely caught up in the action.

As the game reached its climax, the tension in the stadium was palpable. The scores were tied, and it all came down to the final over. The bowler ran in, the batsman swung his bat, and the ball flew through the air. The crowd held their breath as the ball soared over the boundary for a six. The stadium erupted in cheers and applause, with everyone jumping up and down with excitement.

After the game, Charley and I headed back to the pavilion to catch our breath. We couldn’t stop talking about the incredible match we had just witnessed. It was a day that we would never forget, and one that we would always look back on with fondness.

We promise to start writing again ourself soon. We can email you the article when that happens.

Send your pictures of cricket bats and other cricket stuff in unusual places to king@kingcricket.co.uk. It is more than okay to put the cricket thing in the unusual place yourself if you want.

Despite making efforts to steer clear of cricket at the minute, we’re rather struggling to switch on the box without seeing it. If it’s not in a fishing programme, it’s in a Western.

The opening shot of episode two of BBC drama The English shows a game of cricket in Caine County, Powder River in the newly created state of Wyoming in 1890.

We were quite surprised, but then it is called The English and those guys did have a track record of taking humanity’s greatest accomplishment to new lands. (Weird how the missionary zeal has faded since then and the English only really seem to want India and Australia playing the game other than them.)

Along with alarmingly high colour saturation, another aspect of The English’s very distinct visual style is its camera framing. In this case that means we don’t get to see the ball being bowled or hit.

We see the bowler about to bowl. Then we see a shadow of the ball and batter as he takes a swing…

… and then we see your man swing with the sun directly behind him with the ball just out of shot.

Even without the cricket, we reckon you could instantly determine this guy was English purely from his face.

Straight after that, some fella rides in and does a double equine Shahid Afridi halfway down the pitch. (Obviously we mean wicket tampering here. The horses don’t bite the ball or hit massive sixes or anything.)

“What?” says your man.

“Better see for yourself,” replies the horseman.

Your man blurrily mounts his steed leaving his hat on the ground and in focus.

And then they bugger off with great urgency.

And that’s it for cricket. Or at least it is in episode two. We haven’t seen beyond that yet so don’t be coming round here with your “oh but what about that bit in episode three” and your “oh wow have you seen the end?”

Next week on King Cricket: Cricket in a gardening programme or Bladerunner or something.