11 September 2011
The forth of the cricket ODI’s against India. This was the last of the fixtures at Lord’s for which I had tickets and had invited two guess. However, at the beginning of the week the weather forecast was absolutely appalling, the one for Sunday was for heavy showers, on and off all day. Well, that is absolutely useless for cricket. Most other sports can be played in the the rain but not this particular one So I watched the weather forecast day by day during the week and it got better and better but still on Saturday night the forecast was for 40% chance of rain. I certainly didn’t want to go to the expense of getting to Lord’s by ambulance only to find myself sheltering somewhere for the best part of the day. The problem is, of course, that there are no wheelchair facilities at Lord’s so I could not get into the pavilion for example. Debbie, Ollie’s wife, was kind enough to say that I could cancel the ambulance as late as eight o’clock on a Sunday morning so I got up just before 7.00 and immediately checked the hour by hour weather forecast. Amazingly, it had change once again and between the hours of 10.00 a.m. nd 4.00 p.m. the forecast was for a partly cloudy sky and sunny intervals. So I went and was very glad I did.
We were a little thin on the ground for our usual gang, no MC, Paul Newman or Roger Goodwin but Jamie was there and my two guests, my son-in-law Karl and a good friend Steve Harrison. Indeed Steve turned out to be a really good friend as, in the absence of Paul Newman, I had to prevail upon him to take me to the disabled loo, which to his credit, he did without turning a hair.
We had a lovely day and the cricket was very lively and exciting India knocked up a very creditable 281 and when I left at 5.00 England looked as though they were struggling to reach that score. Amazingly, just as we left it started to rain and the teams came off. They went on and off two or three times more until the rain became so heavy that there was no prospect of finishing the game before the cut-off time of 6.30. England have got very close to the Indian score, thanks to Bhopara (96) and Swann who were both out in consecutive balls prior to which we seem to be cruising to a comfortable win.. The other tail-enders went in for a few balls and on and off again, between showers, until England only required 11 runs off the last seven balls. At that stage the rain was so heavy that the umpires abandoned the match. It was then down to deciding what the result should be, so the Duckworth Lewis formula was applied. Don’t asked me to explain how it works but in effect it works out what the Indian score would have been at the same point in the game. The outcome was that this formula determined that the match was tied but one couldn’t help thinking that had we been allowed to play the last seven balls we would have had no trouble in getting those 11 runs. But that is as they say, is the rub of the green
.I spent a miserable evening blowing and wiping my nose to the point where I seriously worried about going to bed and putting on the respirator as I did not think I would be able to breath and I thought I would have to sit up all night in my study chair.
However, in the event all was well and I managed to settle down under the respirator once I got over the panic of the first few moments.
‘My lovely’ and I have agreed that we may shortly have to change our regime, perhaps cutting out the tummy running aromatherapy, which I am no longer convinced is now doing me any good, and instead have a little more carers time in the morning and evening visits.
While we were at Lord’s, Jamie (Dr James Snowdon Barnett in his capacity as my lawyer) got the boys to witness a series of documents which we hope will result in a perpetual contract for the fourth addition and onwards of my book, Cato on Arbitration Practice and Procedure, which is currently being updated.. I just to I live long enough to see it published!
Incidentally, the British and Irish team comfortably accumulating sufficient points to win the Walker Cup, this, for the first time in six years.
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