Life In These United Kingdoms

Some of the people Tim works with in Germany managed to get some cheap(ish £60) tickets to the fourth day of the 1st Pakistan vs England Test Match at Lords. Going to Lords being one of those things one must do while in London I fernangled myself one of the tickets.

Lords Cricket Ground

Since we were picking the tickets up at the ground we organised to meet out the front at 10 (an hour before play started) so we’d have plenty of time to get in. I also had to catch a flight to Berlin at about 7 or so that night (work related) and was going to have to miss the last session so made sure I got there right on time for a change. I was 2 minutes from the ground at about 9:55 when Tim rang saying that they’d just woken up and were still in the outskirts of northern London. Apparantly after we’d left the pub the night before they all went home and polished off a bottle of some form of Japanese moonshine and no one remembered to set an alarm. So I had to hang round outside the ground watching old men scalping for tickets (which was fairly amusing) and listening to the cheers as the final Pakistan wickets fell (which wasn’t) until they dragged their sorry arses over. Finally after about an hour and a half they turned up and we ended up missing the first 45 minutes of play. Bastards.

Anyway… Our seats were actually pretty good as you can see. Good view from the side of the pitch though we were a bit far. What was surprising was that even though there’s all these apartment blocks around the ground with great views of the pitch there was only one balcony with people watching the match. I would have thought they’d be packed. Though since the game was obviously heading for a draw and play was pretty lackluster maybe people just weren’t bothering.

Tim embarassed all of us by insisting on drinking tea rather than beer, making some weak excuse about his head pounding. Luckily he soon got his act together and started sinking down the pints as is expected in England. Had a good day overall despite getting in late and having to leave early. And it was good to see Tim again even though I knew I was seeing him the next weekend in Germany. We seem to always organise things so we’re swapping countries at about the same time. The last time he was coming to the UK I was in Berlin the day before he came over. And this time I was going back over to Berlin just before he went back to Mainz.

Took a whole bunch of photos of course. Wish I’d had my 300mm lens back then though so I could get some better close ups. Still came out pretty well I think. Got some one off photos and a few full ball sequences.

some bowling

some batting

a drive

another drive

fumble

whack