Photograph: Adam Davy/PA
As the wickets clattered across a wild, error‑strewn opening day of England’s international summer, the cricket offered more than enough entertainment to engross a near-capacity crowd at Lord’s. Which was perhaps just as well, given that the promised sideshows proved underwhelming.
Attendees had been asked to wear the colours of the British flag, and perhaps there were a few more union jack jackets and ties than on a typical day at the Test, a scattering of patriotic formalwear to clash with MCC’s traditional bacon and eggs, but of the expected off-field themes jubilee-weekend enthusiasm was as hard to spot as the heavily trailed expanses of empty seats.
