The Lord’s Cricket Ground
Lord’s Cricket Ground is undoubtedly the most important cricket ground, also referred to as the “Home of Cricket”, since it was founded in 1787. Named after founder Thomas Lord, Lord’s is situated in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/S-Wood-c87717, London. It is home to Middlesex County Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board, the European Cricket Council and the International Cricket Council, but is owned by the Marylebone Cricket Club. Lord’s has played an important part in promoting cricket in Britain and the international stage, hosting Test matches, One Day Internationals and other historic fixtures. It also boasts the world famous MCC Museum.
The current Lord’s Cricket Ground is the last of three grounds established by the MCC between 1787 and 1814. The first ground is now called the Lord’s Old Ground and the second is now Lord’s Middle Ground. The Lord’s has nine stands, which can hold about 32,000 spectators. But already plans have been drawn up for redevelopment of the ground, which aims to increase the capacity by another 1000 and add an ice rink to the list of other facilities available. A fund raising baseball game was held in Lord’s and recently there have been plans about hosting Major League Baseball games. Tennis and archery among other sports have been played, but never football or rugby.
The earliest, if not the first match played at Lord’s Cricket Club was in 1814, between Marylebone Cricket Club and Hertfordshire. Lord’s hosts http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Middlesex-c817 home and home Twenty20 matches and the MCC matches. Traditionally Lord’s hosts the first Test of the summer and two one day Internationals. The finals of the National Village Cricket Competition, The Friends Provident Trophy and the MCC Universities Challenge tournament are also held at Lord’s. Two of the Twenty20 Cups matches are also held at Lord’s, though they are not the final match of the tournament.
Each year more than 30 matches are held at Lord’s which attract over 28,000 people a day. So far, over a hundred Test matches have gone underway at Lord’s, the first one in 1884, which England won. Australia’s first win came four years later, in 1888. The other cricketing nations debuted at Lord’s much later on; http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747 in 2000 and 2005 respectively.
The latest match to be held at Lord’s will be the Pakistan-Australia Test series on 13th July this year. Even though, Lord’s is said to be Pakistan’s “home” ground in the series against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 coach Waqar Younis wanted a pitch that would support the spinners and also be conducive for batting but the curators at the Lord's have flatly refused to entertain his request”, a source revealed. The curators claimed that even the England captain or team management could tell them what kind of a track they wanted.
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