Posted by Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.)
Ged Ladd writes…
I was at Lord’s when Jimmy Anderson played his first match there, in 2003, for Lancashire against Middlesex; about 10 days before his first Test. Now I was to be at Lord’s for Jimmy Anderson’s last match too.
This is a King Cricket report, so I cannot talk about the cricket itself. But Jimmy warming up before the match is not really “the cricket,” so I have submitted a picture of that.
I thought I had all the ingredients I needed to make a great picnic for Daisy on day two, but the more I mused during a guestless day one, the more I felt short of some essential ingredients for day two. Worse yet, I realised that my flat was wicked short of provisions generally – not least wine.
A cunning plan formed in my mind. England were to play a major football match the evening of day one. While most of the male population would be “having a semi” I’d nip into the local supermarket and clean up in there.
It was a great plan. The only shoppers were me and a handful of young women, presumably also avoiding the footie. Several were eyeing me with evident curiosity. No sign even of Noel Gallagher, who is one of my nodding acquaintances in that branch of Waitrose. (Other posh supermarket chains are available). Might the gawpy-eyed young women have mistaken me for Noel?
The resulting day two picnic comprised hot-smoked salmon with lime mayonnaise in poppy-seed bagels, ham and gherkin sandwiches, plus some biscuits and grapes. Modest, but to Daisy’s taste – Daisy looks suitably pleased in this picture.
On day three I went to Lord’s on my own again.
This is a King Cricket report, so I cannot talk about the cricket itself. But Jimmy milling about after the match is not really “the cricket,” so I have submitted a picture of that.
This last picture might also initiate a new King Cricket category: Cricketers displaying conspicuous indifference to interviewers.
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Lime mayonnaise? Poppy seed bagels? How the north London set live. Don’t be bringing that muck to Birmingham. We brummies exist purely on a diet of crisps, ale and sarcasm. See you there.
It’s striking that one of the ‘similar deliveries’ above features an image of salmon and a lime in front of some poppy seed bagels.
Ged will no doubt but great emphasis on the ‘hot smoking’ of this year’s salmon, but this still feels like a very slow picnic evolution to us.
Time for an overhaul, Ladd! Vive la revolution!
West London, not North London, Sam.
Also, I should point out that the 2024 poppy seed bagels come from Haminados in Chepstow Road, where “Papa Joe” bakes his own authentic bagels, of which “poppy seed” is but one option – not Daisy’s favourite it now transpires – she prefers the onion ones.
Those depicted from the first Ireland Test match were supermarket poppy seed bagels – fine if that is all you can get but not the same thing at all. Probably not even pre-boiled before baking. Oy.
This year’s Edgbaston hot smoked salmon was served with horseradish mayonnaise – Sam was witness to the eating of same, but I was, at that time, unaware that this piece and the above comments had been posted.
Ged Ladd cuisine is a constantly evolving process. The subtlety of that evolution is wasted on some, but others might consider some of the culinary changes revolutionary.
Hasta la bagel, dudes.
Poppy seed bagels are the future Sam, there’s no escaping it. I had some sausage rolls yesterday that had poppy seeds on them, though, and that was a bit disappointing
What a rollercoaster of a comment. Feel the rush!
The Tebay and Gloucester services sausage rolls with poppy seeds on are right up there.
I know you don’t do requests, KC, but if you did, could you do an article on the Top Five K. Sciver-Brunt pottymouthed Hundred commentary moments?
What’s the latest?
Bloody, cock-up and crap among others, all in a ten-minute sweary salvo.
I’m new to her commentary style so maybe this is her toning it down though…
How is The Hundred supposed to compete with the One Day Cup when the latter will feature TGNW?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/cd1jpp4vn43o
Unit watch is back!
Alex Hartley: ‘You looked really strong with the ball as a unit.’
Sophie Ecclestone: ‘Yeah, we did look really strong with the ball as a unit.’
Hartley also added a ‘going forward’ and Ecclestone chucked in a ‘we didn’t execute our plans.’
Apologies for bringing cricket – well, The Hundred – into the conversation but am I alone in continuing to be spectacularly un-arsed by the whole competition?
None of these teams are mine and, just as with the IPL, without a team I just can’t generate enthusiasm.
And – again, just like with the IPL – I can’t fool myself by just “picking one”. That’s not how these things work. Well not for me, anyway.
You think this is bad, try Major League Cricket or the Lanka Premier League with its ever changing team names.
The ECB’s grand plan is that after a while, people who didn’t previously have an allegiance will develop one, and become football-style fans who travel to away games regularly, have a tribal attachment to the team rather than the players, etc.
The people who are most likely to do this are children (or other people with no existing attachment to existing counties or structures) who have no memory of a time before Manchester Originals, Oval Invincibles, etc. Therefore, these are the people the Hundred is being marketed to. If some ‘legacy fans’ want to bring their kids, great, but there’s no real attempt to claim continuity with the history of domestic cricket competitions. It’s like the (Football) Premier League ‘Football was invented in 1992’ approach on steroids.
Whether this will work, whether it will prove counterproductive for the sport as a whole, and whether it will matter to those with a stake in a The Hundred if it succeeds at the cost of the affections of people who know who Ian Botham is (let alone Ian Austin), all remain to be seen.
I love James Anderson
Nominative determinism again proven.
Look, “hot-smoked salmon with lime mayonnaise in poppy-seed bagels, ham and gherkin sandwiches, plus some biscuits and grapes” does it for me, thanks Ged, you had me at ‘grapes’, but seriously: “(Other posh supermarket chains are available).” What is going on with that full stop outside the brackets?
I won’t sleep tonight, thinking about that. (Or maybe that will be the Irish batting capitulation today in Belfast.)
Thanks for the grammar check, Chuck, appreciated.
Sone word processors help to keep my dysgraphia sufficiently in check, but, in that instance, the combination of me and the software let the side down, as a unit. Going forward, I shall try to execute my writing plans better, but cannot promise perfection, even though I leave 120% out there on the screen whenever I write.