When my son was young, around 8 or 9, we lived in north London. I’d pick him up from school and take him to Lords at tea-time when the entry price for adults was £5 and children were free. We saw all kinds of less popular matches – most memorably, a young Bangladesh Test side, which played with spirit and lost six wickets during our two-hour visit. This was old-style cricket – half-empty stands, occasional ripples of applause, everything charmingly sedate, with a few bursts of moderate excitement. The colour scheme was most definitely green and white. This, in truth, is my favourite kind of cricket.
The Hundred is just crickety enough to be cricket, and will be the English game’s saviour
Fast forward to a few Sundays ago; my son is 25 now, and we were at Lords again – this time for the technicolour, bells-and-whistles final of The Hundred tournament.
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