The way I came to be at Lord's last Monday
was that my colleague Harold Nicolson some time ago wrote an article distinctly derogatory of cricket and Sir Pelham Warner thought he ought to see some proper cricket so I undertook to convoy him some day to Lord's and I thought I had nailed him successfully for this week but it turned out I hadn't so I went by myself. The last time I was at Lord's was for the Varsity match of 19—, but to specify the year really dates too badly. Anyhow, it was the year when Cambridge, with six wickets down in their second innings, were still behind Oxford's first innings total, and then Colbeck knocked up 107 and someone else knocked up 6o and the tail wagged valiantly and someone else skittled Oxford out and Cambridge won in the end, which was all as should be. Coming thus fresh to consideration of the national game, I was struck on Monday by the number of people (I was one of them) who were able to pack the stands and the enclosures on a workday afternoon ; by the attractive decorum of the whole affair—handclapping instead of the raucous shouts of a football crowd—and generous handclapping at that, for every maiden over, good stroke or piece of good fielding ; by the singular difficulty of scoring runs with a well-placed field ; and by the promising precocity of Mr. Ian Bedford, who at the age of i7 was making the Surrey batsmen (not by any means the Surrey of Hayward and Hobbs and Abei) as unhappy as they had ever been. Trite reflections, I am afraid, but there they are.
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