century at Lords ! .......... ringing of bell at Lords !! ~ Red for Ruth !!!

India is playing in the 2^nd Test against England at Lords.  Lords Cricket Ground turned red for the Ruth Strauss Foundation’s #RedforRuth day on Day 2 of the second Test between India and England. Sir Andrew Strauss urged fans to wear red to watch day 2 of the second test to raise funds for research into non-smoking lung cancer.

Middlesex  is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbouring ceremonial counties. It was established in the Anglo-Saxon period from the territory of the Middle Saxons, and existed as an official administrative unit until 1965. The county is bounded to the south by the River Thames, and has the rivers Colne and Lea and a ridge of hills forming its other boundaries. The largely low-lying county, dominated by clay in its north and alluvium on gravel in its south, was the second smallest by area in 1831.

Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the European Cricket Council (ECC) and, until August 2005, the International Cricket Council (ICC). Lord's is widely referred to as the Home of Cricket and is home to the world's oldest sporting museum. Lord's today is not on its original site; it is the third of three grounds that Lord established between 1787 and 1814.  The current ground celebrated its two hundredth anniversary in 2014. To mark the occasion, on 5 July an MCC XI captained by Sachin Tendulkar played a Rest of the World XI led by Shane Warne in a 50 overs match.

Test Series title partner LV= Insurance has kindly dedicated the entire Second LV= Insurance Test Match between England and India to the charity, helping raise awareness of its mission across all five days and supporting #RedForRuth day on day two. The Ruth Strauss Foundation was set-up by former England cricket captain Sir Andrew Strauss in memory of his late wife, Ruth. She died of a non-smoking lung cancer in December 2018, aged just 46.

India has thus far played 19 tests at this venue and have won 2 – in 1986 and 2014. In June 1932 India, played their first Test match, at Lord's against England. In those days Tests against anyone other than Australia were of three days' duration and started on a Saturday with a rest day on the Sunday.  England, in their first representative match in this country with India, gained a fine victory shortly after four o'clock on the third afternoon by 158 runs. Before that result had been achieved, however, the home side, particularly on the first day, experienced some anxious moments.  

At Lord's, June 1986 – led by the great Kapil Dev, India won the test  by five wickets, their first Test victory at Lord's and only their second at that time  in 33 Tests in England. It was, in addition, England's sixth successive defeat since regaining the Ashes so comprehensively the previous season, and at the end of the match Gower was informed by the chairman of selectors, PBH May, that he had been relieved of the captaincy. Gatting, the vice-captain, was promoted to lead England in the next two Tests.  Vengsarkar scored a century, Chetan sharma took 5 wickets in an innings – Kapil Dev was the player of the match. 

There have been 11 centuries thus far scored by Indians at Lords : starting from Vinoo Mankad in 1952, Gndappa Viswanath in 1979, Dilip Vengsarkar in 1979, 1982 & 1986; Azharuddin 1990, Ravi Shastri 1990; Sourav Ganguly 1996; Ajit Agarkar 2002; Rahul Dravid 2011; Ajinkya Rahane 2014 & KL Rahul … .. yesterday joined that elite list with a well made ton.   The highest is 184 by Vinoo Mankad, 157 by Vengsarkar and then 131 by Sourav.

The highest individual score at Lords however is by Graham Gooch 333 in 1990 against India; Greame Smith 259 in 2003; Donald Bradman 254 – 1930; WR Hammond 240 1938 & IJL Trott 226 2020 complete the top 5 highest scores.

The ringing of bell five minutes before,  heralding the start of the Match is a ceremonial honour.  On day 1 Enid Bakewell rang the bell and today it was Andre Strauss and children.  Regarded as one of England’s great cricketers, and one of the most recognisable names in the women’s game, Bakewell played 12 Tests for England, amassing 1,078 runs in the process and taking 50 wickets. Her batting average of 59.88 is the highest by an English woman in Tests, and the highest by any woman playing 12 Tests or more. She also played 23 One-Day Internationals for her country, scoring 500 runs and taking 25 wickets with her slow left-arm. Bakewell played in the first ever women’s ODI at Lord’s in 1976, hitting 50 in an eight-wicket win over Australia. The match is featured as one of the Ground’s 100 Greatest Milestones on the Lord’s Father Time wall.

Interesting !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
13^th Aug 2021.