A day in the Oval office

I spent today in a very enjoyable 8 hour meeting with Solicitors. Enjoyable as the meeting venue was quite conducive to open discussion, the refreshments provided were very good, and in the breaks they provided us with an opportunity to have a good look at the things going on around us.

Or to put it another way, I was taken to the England v Pakistan Test match at the Oval.

It was an interesting day and summed up Britain in many ways.

We queued in an orderly fashion to get into the ground and took our seats in good time for the start of the match at 11.00 am.

The first ball of the match was bowled by Pakistan who had won the toss and had elected to field. Then the second ball was bowled and then...it started raining and play was stopped for half an hour or so.

Eventually the game restarted, and was a bit “on-off” for a while, but then the weather started to improve and the sun came out. At this point the umpires decided that lunch should be taken so the game came to a halt again.

Given the loss in play, did they decide to have a shorter lunch break, so that the fee paying (OK so I didn't pay!) crowd could get there monies worth? No.

Therefore it was time for a drink from the bar.

There are many rules at the Oval: -

1. Alcohol is prohibited from being taken into the ground.
2. The maximum number of drinks that can be bought in any one "round" is 4.
3. The bar has to close for 90 minutes following the resumption of play after lunch.

Do any of these rules reduce drunkeness? Well quite the opposite actually, as people seem encouraged to visit the bar more than they would normally, but at least 4 drinks each and line them up in case they get thirsty.

Having already won the series, great things were expected of England, and they soon set about lowering those expectations with a great demonstration of ineptitude. There also seemed to be another rule at the Oval that linked the roars of the crowd to welcome a new batsman, with the subsequent performance of that batsman.

e.g. Big cheer for Kevin Petersen - out first ball; Biggest cheer of the day for Monty Panesar - clean bowled first ball!!

Eventually England were all out for 170 ish. (Do the alcohol restrictions help people remember the score accurately? Clearly not.) Well the added bonus of watching England get “skittled” out (is this a valid term if they were not actually playing skittles? Would they have faired better if they had been?) is that we then had the chance to see England cause Pakistan the same sort of problems that Pakistan had caused England.

Matthew Hoggard bowled the first ball, and then the second...unfortunately this time it didn't start raining and play wasn't stopped!

It is probably worth pointing out at this point to all those of you that haven't been to a live cricket match that for approximately 95% of the game......you cannot actually see the ball! In fact some of the time I think that all of the players may have been miming, and acting out some sporting equivalent of "The Emporers New Clothes". "Did you see that good shot, old chap?" "Course I did, old chap". "Did the ball hit his pads?" etc etc - There was no ball!! it was all pretend!

Pakistan started to score freely.With England doing as badly at bowling as they had done at batting, the crowd - Ok the “barmy army” within the crowd - started to play their own games.

There were many failed attempts to start Mexican Waves - which didn't please those trying to start them;

There was the appearance of a very large beach ball which was kept in the air by the crowd for a long time until it was confiscated by a steward - which wasn't appreciated by large sections of the “barmy army”;

There were competitions where plastic beer glasses (PBGs) were “stacked” as high as possible - reaching heights in excess of 10 feet, making them wave around in the breeze like giant...like giant...like giant stack of plastic beer glasses. In a steward pincer movement, the PBG balancers were surrounded, and the offending PBGs were also confiscated. Aforementioned “barmy army” didn't seem to like this either and PBG's started to be thrown. Police moved in, one PBG balancer was removed from the ground etc etc

Clearly very irritated by now, the "barmy army" started singing "community songs" - classics such as "Three pound an hour, three pound an hour - you're only on three pound an hour"; (This was aimed at the stewards, and seemed to imply that they weren't even worth the minimum wage, whereas the bright green jackets that they were wearing, emblazoned with "The Green Team" on the back, tried to give the impression that they were some sort of crack /elite unit!) and "What's your name, what's your name, what's your name" etc etc. (which seemed to imply absolutely nothing at all).

Now it was at this point as more police moved in to deal with certain individuals within the barmy army that I thought that very soon the cameras would soon turn from the inaction on the pitch, to the action in the stands. Action that was actually going on all around me...and if this happened and my face appeared on the cricket high(low)lights for all to see...how would I explain the 'All day meeting with Solicitors' entry in my office diary?

Time to make a sharp exit.