Section:GDN 1N PaGe:35 Edition Date:190807 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 6/8/2019 19:02 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Wednesday 7 August 2019 The Guardian •
35Bigger and bolder
Cricket’s dumps of
yester year have been
transformed into
sporting palaces
E
ven if spending eight hours getting
pissed in fancy dress while clutching
replica sandpaper is your idea of a living
hell, you have to admit that Edgbaston’s
Hollies Stand made itself known. Tim
Paine started the fi rst Test by arguing
that Edgbaston was not in the top 15
most intimidating venues in the world,
but Cameron Bancroft and David Warner experienced
a physical hit as they strode out into that wall of sound
on Thursday morning. The ground calls itself “Fortress
Edgbaston” for a reason, and Australia had not won
there in any format since 2001 – until Monday, when the
drawbridge fell in and the turrets tumbled down.
Already a crowd-pleaser, and the fi rst ground
to hold a senior fl oodlit game, Edgbaston’s £32 m
redevelopment in 2010-11 brought new stands and
increased capacity and stature.
It is not the only stadium to have grown ever bigger
and ever bolder. Despite being a sucker for a county
outground, complete with darting swallows and white
marquees selling meticulously laid out and slightly soft
two-fi ngered Kit Kats, I’d agree that the behemoths have
come into their own this summer. Looming large over
their various cities, they have dominated the landscape
on match days, their backs to the Bull ring or football’s
Old Traff ord, or Regent’s Park or the Trent, their settings
vast skies of banking grey or breathy blue.
English grounds have never been cavernous – Lord’s
is the biggest with a capacity for 28,000 souls. But the
upside is that they are easier to fi ll, and an atmosphere
builds quickly.
The World Cup games were largely packed to bursting,bar the usual problems with sponsors not taking up
their seats. Lord’s was a wonder at the fi nal, stuff ed to
the last inch, with staff perching on walls and a pavilion
that threw off years of buttoned-up politeness in an
explosion of super-over joy.H
eadingley is never going to win any
beauty prizes, though I’ve a soft
spot for the old girl, squeezed as
she is by rows of terraces and the
rugby ground, but the new stand
that she shares with Leeds Rhinos
is a thing of Meccano-like glory. She
hosted a couple of cracking World
Cup matches, though the Afghanistan v Pakistan game
was marred by the odd bit of bottle-throwing crowd
trouble. The Roses T20 game, on a gorgeous summer
night a couple of weeks ago, was also chock-a-block
with happy punters.
Old Traff ord, too, has had a fantastic year , with
a bumper round of World Cup matches – every one
a thriller in a diff erent way – and under largely and
remarkably brilliant skies. India v Pakistan had all the
props, even if Pakistan couldn’t make a game of it;
Eoin Morgan lit up England v Afghanistan; West Indies
came within inches of a remarkable victory against
New Zealand; before a pause for calm at West Indies v
India followed by South Africa upsetting Australia in
the semi-fi nal place-setter. Then the semi-fi nal itself
between India and New Zealand, a game that – until
the fi nal unfolded so spectacularly – was the best of the
tournament. The two big red pill boxes that squat either
side of the pavilion were complemented by the rickety
temporary stand, its boney structure articulating up into
the sky, rocking and rolling with the crowd as the tension
swayed. Even on an empty County Championship day, it
still has a strange appeal.
Travel back in time to the two other landmark years
in recent English cricketing history and you see how
things have changed. In 1981, Ian Botham carried out
his deeds of derring-do at a selection of dumps – faded
concrete palaces of knock-me-down fences, crumbling
terraces and dodgy toilets.
By 2005 things had improved: Lord’s had been
spruced up and admitted women members, while the
Oval opened its redeveloped OCS stand at the Vauxhall
End a few months before the fi nal Ashes Test. Trent
Bridge was still lovely, if smaller, and
the Hollies Stand was in place for
the second closest Test in history at
Edgbaston. Old Traff ord, however,
lost its place at the top table not long
afterwards, its facilities judged not
up to scratch. So Lancashire threw
the kitchen sink at redevelopment,
even picketing Traff ord town hall with
mascot Lanky the giraff e, then lifting
and twisting the pitch by 90 degrees.
Something of an unwise battle for
international matches then ensued,
exacerbated by a blind bidding
process. The Riverside, Cardiff and
Southampton were thoughtlessly
encouraged to over reach, only to
fi nd themselves with marvellous
new stadiums but without games with which to fi ll
them . Durham were particularly hard hit, but their
World Cup games this year were a pleasure to attend,
despite happening when the semi-fi nalists had mostly
worked themselves out.
Other things have changed for the better, too :
Edgbaston has joined the Oval and Lord’s in the battle
to become the UK’s greenest cricket ground, reducing
waste and energy use, powered by renewable energy,
going plastic free and working to reduce its carbon
footprint. What’s more, the architectural marvels can
now be shown off in all their splendour with TV’s new
favourite toy, spider-cam. England must just hope that
the fi rst Test capitulation was but a passing nightmare,
because not even the most splendid structure will be
able to disguise an Ashes rout.Tanya Aldred
Looming
large
over their
various
cities, the
grounds
dominate
the
landscape
on match
days▼ The outcome was
not a good advert for
English cricket but
Edgbaston came out of
the fi rst Test very well
GARETH COPLEY/GETTY IMAGESRugby union
Jones wields
the axe with Te’o
left out of squad
Page 38 Cricket
Anderson told to
prove his fi tness
out in the middle
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