Wouldn’t a slap in the face with a wet towel make those journalists even more dewey-eyed, Deep Cower?

I’m comfortable with your intention but not with your specific proposal. Needs more thought.

I am not sure it matters to someone getting axed whether he “treads the final steps” at Lord’s or Colombo. These are professionals who have demonstrated enough capability to represent their country – you don’t get to that level being a sentimental puppy. Their overriding emotion would be disgust and disappointment at being left out, not gratitude that it happened at Lord’s.

I wish I could line up every journalist who goes on and on about Lord’s and smack each of them in the face with a wet towel.

Not even with a champagne sabre?

We don’t have lounges around here, Mike. We have sitting rooms, drawing rooms or (if feeling a bit slummy) living rooms. We don’t have carpets around here, Mike. We have wooden floors, ideally the original oak floorboards painstakingly restored.

I don’t know about you, KC, but when I am in somebody’s home I do not pop champagne corks aiming for maximum cork velocity/distance while ignoring the inevitable spillage of copious libatic substances all over my host’s lounge carpet.

It’s hard to maintain a tone of solemnity for someone with such a ridiculous Twithandle. Fortunately Derbyshire’s Alex Hughes (@yozza18) seems unlikely to make international cricket…

Some words by Scyld Berry specifically on the subject of Compton’s inevitable axeing, put into the context of a previous thread:

“At least he has the consolation of going out to sympathetic applause at the home of cricket. Had Compton made it to Australia, he might have played his last Test innings at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, or Adelaide Oval, and departed with the lingering memory of deafening abuse.

“But then Lord’s is gracious. It is unlike everywhere else in the professional game, and the reason why lies in that sobriquet “the home of cricket”. Throw in “spiritual” and it would be pretentious, but not as it stands. Even its physically closest relation, the Oval across the river, is a ground – whereas people at Lord’s behave as if there are in somebody’s home.”

What a privelege it is to tread your final steps in test cricket upon The Hallowed Turf of Lord’s – that which might make a serviceable carpet in one’s lounge.

Presumably his will be a hangcompdog face.

It’s part and parcel of the tough nature of test cricket – it’s a dog-eat-compdog world.

We’re not. It will of course be on display. It’s just that we find the whole thing rather sad.