How Lord’s intensifies both glory and failure

Peter Hayter offers a 44-year appreciation of the magic of HQ

Lord’s. There is something about the place that always makes what happens on the field just that little bit more memorable. Forgive the indulgence, but, 44 years on from my earliest experiences of watching Test cricket here, going through the gates for the first day of England’s final Test against Sri Lanka still feels like the first time, and a trawl though some personal memories supports my utterly baseless theory that when good things happen here somehow they are all the better for it, and bad things are all the worse.

Think of, or, if you’re too young, try to imagine the sight of softly-spoken sideburns model Bob Massie from Perth, Western Australia, making one of the most extraordinary Test debuts in June 1972, swinging the ball at right-angles under heavy grey skies and taking 16 wickets in the match, 8-84 in the first innings and 8-53 in the second.

Think of the prematurely-grey, bespectacled David Steele from Staffordshire, and how, in 1975, he answered the SOS from new England skipper Tony Greig to blunt the fury of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson that had destroyed them Down Under the previous winter. On his debut, not only at Test level but also at the ground, the 33-year-old descended a flight of stairs too many, pushed open a door expecting to emerge onto the field and walked straight into the basement toilet.

Things hardly improved when he made it to the middle where Lillee, perfectly describing his bottom-out walk, named him “Groucho”.

But, thrusting out his front pad and England cap to even the fiercest short-stuff, he battled his way to a half-century, his efforts memorialised by Clive Taylor, the brilliant cricket writer for The Sun who called him “the bank clerk who went to war”.

In 1981, the power of Lord’s to amplify bad vibrations as well became harrowingly clear to Ian Botham.

Perhaps paying him back for overcharging for seat cushions when an unruly oik on the Lord’s groundstaff, the members made plain their feelings about his captaincy when he returned to the pavilion after completing a pair against Australia, to the sound of tumble weed and silent harrumphing.

Then, when told by the cricket Press that the young all-rounder had resigned, chairman of selectors Alec Bedser softened the blow by declaring: “We were going to sack him anyway.” The way he took out his revenge on the Aussies will never be forgotten.

Talking of departing skippers, don’t mention David Gower. Oh, all right then.

After having presided over, but hardly been responsible for, the second of back-to-back 5-0 defeats to West Indies, Gower had responded to criticism of his laid-back approach by having 13 T-shirts printed before the opening Test of 1986 against India, one with the logo, “I’m in charge”, the other dozen with the words “I’m not”.

Little did he know that, at the very moment he was conducting post-defeat interviews for BBC TV on the balcony, the chairman of selectors Peter May was inside the dressing room offering his job to Mike Gatting. When Gower did find out, with typical aplomb, he made a point of swapping T-shirts with the new leader.

Graham Gooch showed what he meant by a “daddy” hundred in July 1990 when he made 333 against India. While most would have settled for that, he was gutted not to make the most of what turned out to be his only chance to break the world Test record of the time, Garry Sobers’ 365.

As Australia had already made 452-3, when Phil Tufnell bowled out Mark Waugh on day two of the second Test in June 1993, it is doubtful the ‘Cat’ felt much like celebrating, either. But one bookmaker certainly did.

He had taken a bet on each of the first four Aussie batsmen scoring a century and Michael Slater, Mark Taylor and David Boon had given him a run for his money, the openers making 152 and 111 and the No.3 finishing with 164 not out.

So when Tuffers dismissed Mark Waugh for 99, the unlucky punter was deprived of a payout estimated at more than £100,000 by one lousy run.

And that was the same score on which, two days later, Mike Atherton called Gatting for the third run that would have earned him his ton, was sent back and run out by the width of Gatt’s dinner plate.

The match was also memorable for one of the best sledges in Ashes history. After Robin Smith had played and missed at three in a row, Hughes bristled: “Mate, what the f*** are you doing out here? You can’t f***ing bat.” When Smith cracked the next ball through the covers for four he beckoned his opponent to tell him: “Well, Merv, we make a fine pair, don’t we? I can’t f***ing bat and you can’t f***ing bowl”.

After having ended the Nineties as the worst team in Test cricket, the first steps to redemption were taken in the second Test against West Indies in June 2000.

England had not won a series against them for 31 years and had lost the first Test of this one at Edgbaston by an innings and 93 runs.

Dismissed for 134 in their first innings, one more push from Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh would have done for them but enter Andrew Caddick (5-16), Darren Gough (2-17) and Dominic Cork (3-13), humbling Brian Lara & Co. for 64 and Cork and Gough holding their nerve in the late evening to nick victory by two wickets.

Thence to the greatest series of all, the 2005 Ashes and the opening morning when, fired up by the prospect that England might actually win for the first time in what seemed like forever, MCC members sent Michael Vaughan’s men out with a Long Room roar that left ears ringing and senses scrambled.

Happening to be in the pavilion at the time, I heard what they heard, described thus by wicket-keeper Geraint Jones: “Outside the door of our dressing room a guard of honour had formed that stretched all the way down the stairs.

As we passed through the noise was unbelievable. When we entered the Long Room, the place erupted.”

Teammate Marcus Trescothick said: “We felt like we were going out to fight for the world heavyweight title.”

Although England slid to defeat – and the bowling of Glenn McGrath that caused it was pure artistry – the intensity produced by Steve Harmison, Matthew Hoggard, Andrew Flintoff and Simon Jones that morning in bowling out Australia for 190 showed how their world-beating opponents could be beaten.

The roar had such an effect on Trescothick that, four years later, in the season after he had been forced to quit playing for England, he made sure he was among the Long Room roarers who urged Andrew Strauss’ team to try to regain the urn in 2009, then watched his former opening partner set up victory with a brilliant 161 and Andrew Flintoff finish it off with his last great contribution, 5-92 on a flat one.

Events at Headquarters during the final Test of the 2010 series against Pakistan have long since passed into infamy, and, again, they seemed all the more depressing because they happened at Lord’s of all places – how will Lord’s react should Mohammad Amir, one of the culprits, take the field later this summer? – but notable mention should also be made of the brilliant batting of Jonathan Trott (184) and Stuart Broad (169) that took England from 102-7 to 446 all out and set up victory by an innings and 225 runs.

Since then, perhaps the most eye-catching performances have been produced by England’s new wave, led by Joe Root with the bat and Ben Stokes with bat and ball, but the scariest, surely, by Australia’s Mitchell Johnson who paid back those who sniggered at his waywardness in previous series by terrifying England batters and supporters with brutal pace and accuracy last summer.

Lord’s. There’s something about the place that always makes what happens on the field just that little bit more memorable, something about the place that makes the good better and the bad worse.

Roll on the next 44 years.

This piece originally featured in The Cricket Paper, Friday June 10 2016

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