The Lord’s” The lord of the grounds”

When we discuss about the cricket grounds for the pitch, outfield, facilities, stands & the history 10 out of 9 people would choose the name The Lord's as the first choice. The oldest & if I am not wrong the first ever official Test match between Australia & England was played on this very ground (Around 1884). Every player dream to play on this ground to make himself a part of the history. It is motivation & also the pressure that sometimes gets good out of a normal player & below par performance from a great player. The Great sunil Gavaskar could not score century on this ground even Sachin have not scored half century on this ground but the Mumbai duck Ajit Agarkar holds that privilege of scoring the hundred (109 ) on Lord’s though we lost that match.

It is said that 3 W’s of London shall not be believed ( Wine, Woman & Weather.), add to it the nature of Lord’s pitch. This ground has seen the lowest scores as well as mammoth totals. The lowest team score on this ground is 42 by India !- 1974. & the highest being 729 by Australia in 1930. (In most recent 682 by South Africa in 2003). This is the same ground on which Graham Gooch murdered Indian bowling during 1989-90 series scoring triple century & century in the same match. & Glenn McGrath took 8/38 in 1997 to bowl out England on 85 odd runs.

Generally Lord’s pitch does not offer much to the swing bowlers after the first two hours of the game unless the weather is cloudy & breeze flowing across the ground specially from pavilion end as the Lord’s has the slope on one side of the wicket. The genuine fast bowlers in the likes of Brett Lee, Andrew Flintoff or the spin bowlers like Shane Warne , Muralidharan can extract good out of it.

India does not have the good,,, it’s better to say bitter memories on this ground. Out of 15 matches India have lost 10 & managed to win only one in 1982 thanks to Kapil Dev’s all round performance in that match. Be the 100th test match between India & England at Lord’s bring luck to the lucky captain Dhoni or the Ashes winning team keeps their good record against India at Lord’s….. I expect the close encounter, as close as the World cup tie match……

Ritesh R. Kadam
9011020015
rityakadam@rediffmail.com