A CAPACITY crowd of cricket followers and curious families streaming through the gates, massed ranks of outdoor chairs and coolbox snacks, and some sporting heroics to applaud. Top class cricket came to Rugby School’s famous pitch, The Close, last week when Warwickshire played Surrey in the Metro Bank One Day Cup – and brought the people and the weather with it.
The school is of course a magnificent sight in all seasons but it cannot have looked much better than this. A brightly coloured crowd packed round an immaculate field bathed in almost unbroken sunshine – a perfect English scene against which nothing could really go wrong.
And nothing did go wrong. Instead everything seemed to go right. The cricket was engrossing throughout and, in its final twists, absolutely thrilling. And the atmosphere matched the occasion too, the home crowd’s calls of ‘You Bears’ becoming more at-home as the day went on and the visits to the beer wagon mounted.
Those of us well-versed in the big outdoor event – whether that be sporting, musical or theatrical – can be disappointingly familiar with problems in catering for the crowds. Long queues for expensive food and bad toilets often come with the territory – but not here.
A decent choice of grub for those without sandwiches and no end of space in which to enjoy the day – hats off to all who put this event together.
As the afternoon wore on many sought the welcome shade of the splendid trees surrounding the ground – you don’t get that at Edgbaston – while youngsters formed any number of ad-hoc games exploiting the carpet-like grounds.
In the end though this is professional cricket and the experiment needed to pass quite a few tests. Hopefully this is a trial which will be seen to have worked in many ways.
The club and its players needed to be reassured about the quality of the surface and, with Bears’ top order almost all making decent runs, and plenty there for the bowlers, this has to have been a success. This was a proper game of cricket, not the summer festival knock around it could have been.
For the county’s loyal following there also had to be something that makes up for not being at Edgbaston, and with its setting, atmosphere and decent spectator facilities, this game should have ticked all the boxes too. Winning won’t have hurt matters either.
But for the casual, family groups who wouldn’t really think of heading for the large stands in Birmingham, was there enough to bring them back? Judging by the fun of picnics and the chance to run and chase the ball on the glorious grass of this wonderful setting, there was.
In the end Warwickshire won in the most dramatic of seesaw games but there were so many more successes than just the two points on offer – and with further games to come, this could become a most rewarding partnership.
Warwickshire host two more One-Day Cup games this summer, against Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. Visit www.edgbaston.com for full details.
All pictures by Darren Quinton/Touchstone Visuals.
