Bert writes:

Whenever Ged goes to the Test, he is literally sustained by a succession of culinary marvels. My test match sustenance, on the other hand, is more metaphorical than literal, being largely a succession of pointless and asinine conversations. But just as when Harry Morgan’s closes its doors for the evening, the source of our interlocutory morsels occasionally fails, and uncomfortable silence falls. It is at moments such as these when the Times Saturday Review section comes to the rescue.

Aside from being very badly named (it is published on a Saturday morning, for god’s sake), its usefulness as a trigger for drunken conversation is unsurpassed. Not the least of its delights is the puzzle section, and the edition I grabbed on my way out of the house could not have been more appropriate. The Two Brains quiz comprised the following questions:

1. Which England cricket captains share their surname with a British Prime Minister?

2. Which first name is the most common among a) British Prime Ministers and b) England Cricket Captains, and how many times does the most common of the latter occur in the list of the former?

(This second question I interpreted as asking a numerical question, as opposed to the answer being “Gaz” or “Kev”.)

During an hiatus at the conversation, I asked the lads these questions. Several people in the locality overheard, and soon it became the main point of discussion in our part of the stand. Answers were flying in from all over the place. The first PM / Captain surname combo was knocked off quite quickly, but the others took some time. My suggestion of Derbyshire opening batsman Des Rayleigh was dismissed as made-up nonsense, which was true, but I didn’t think gave it sufficient credit. Therefore I repeated it a few times till it was at least acknowledged.

The captains’ first name question also didn’t take too long, but the prime ministerial version took a lot longer.

To finish, we did the Word Finder puzzle, to find as many words as you can from the letters Y, D, E, D, S, U, N, T, U, R, four letters or more, all containing the first of these letters (Y), no proper nouns, no conjugated verbs, no comparatives, superlatives or plurals. A ten-letter word does exist, we are told. Getting 13 words is described as “average”. 18 is “good”, 26 is “very good”, and 34 is “excellent”. We also added a rule that any word we could associate with cricket, however loosely, would score two points.

Our combined total of words by stumps, taking into account the double-points amendment, was coincidentally the same as that of England test wins in this series at that moment.

It wasn’t all pointless rambling though. We also asked and answered the question, “Is First Slip the most redundant position on a test match field?”, and debated whether or not the observation (made by one of us) that he preferred the South African whites was acceptable in this day and age.

Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.

Edwardian writes:

I arrived at Fenner’s just after start of play and exchanged a ‘hello’ with an Arab in a floppy hat on the boundary. I had to bone up on Arabs before the match. The team are a wandering outfit started by E.W. (Jim) Swanton back in the frozen to death.

There was a heavy throng of nine spectators in the pavilion which included Spike, myself, the two scorers and Marlene manning the bar. Marlene fought off demanding punters who asked for drinks at half-hour intervals. She skilfully decanted cans of lager, IPA and Old Speckled Hen and coped with the onslaught admirably.

Spike had already ordered his lunch of gammon and new potatoes. I had brought my own docky bag comprising a chilli scotch egg (about ¾ the size of a cricket ball) and haslet slices in a roll with salad and mustard.

I thought 12.30pm was a sensible time for a beer so went for a Hen, pinched a knife from the tuck shop and halved the scotch egg. Spike was gearing himself up for the in-house lunch and refused the other half. I ate the other half. The Scotch egg was a great combination with the beer but putting chilli in a scotch egg I thought was a bit of a novelty not worth repeating.

I lost track of the scorecard. Spike managed to get his nosebag in ahead of the players at 1.30pm. He lost track of the scorecard.

As the players came in for lunch I contemplated the pros and cons of another pint and decided that thinking in general is a dangerous occupation.

I ate the haslet roll. The bread roll had olives embedded in it. I gave myself a good talking to.

Spike thought that the Cambridge spinner N. J. Winder was someone to look out for in the future and mentioned something about Wackford Squeers and windows.

The match wound up at about 3.30pm and Spike and I sank the beer I was contemplating earlier. Two players strolled to the bar making the floorboards strain at 11 occupants.

I got the feeling that the Cambridge middle-order batsmen were begrudging not having enough time out in the middle.

‘It’s only April,’ was said at least three times. This is cricketing-speak for, ‘It’s only April.’

Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an ad-hoc match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.

We went to the second Test between England and Pakistan. It was one of your ‘on and off’ type days where the line between raining and not raining becomes blurred.

Having greatly enjoyed the timeless rope dragging technique at Bristol earlier in the summer, we were interested to see whether Old Trafford’s ground staff would also resort to this old and ineffectual tactic for combating surface water.

They did. And being a Test match ground, they also took things up a level.

Not only was the rope dragged by two motorised vehicles, but the drivers also ensured that they went either side of the stewards positioned on the pitch, forcing each of them to jump over the rope. As they slowly approached each one, the crowd treated itself to the slow-build crescendo cheer usually reserved for hat-trick deliveries.

As with every other visit to Old Trafford, “The Device” got an airing. It occurs to us that we’ve never actually shown you “The Device,” so here’s a picture.

In this shot “The Device” is fulfilling its secondary ‘makeshift table’ function, but you can easily imagine it being deployed for a quadruple carry back from the bar.

“The Device” has been rigid and dependable for its entire 20-year career. It is the Misbah-ul-Haq of pint-carrying contraptions.

Midway through the afternoon, we noticed that there was a permanently non-illuminated square on the big screen. Not only was this distracting for replays when it was often a similar size to the ball, it also raised the distinct possibility of an accidental Hitler whenever there was a close-up.

You can see it looming threateningly in this shot.

Your imagination can do the rest.

Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.

Ged’s car, Dumbo the Suzuki Jimny writes:

A few weeks after my run in with the law and failed attempt to see Lord’s, Ged organised another out and about day, to include work, a house visit and eventually another net at Lord’s with Charley “The Gent” Malloy and Escamillo Escapillo. After my frustrations last time, I felt a mixture of excitement and trepidation; I so wanted to see Lord’s this time.

Same routine as last time with the cricket coffin, kit bag, work papers bag and tarpaulin in my trunk. This time we set off much earlier in the day. We went to the same big office building in Hammersmith as last time; again I waited hours and hours for Ged. I also waited a couple of hours while Ged visited Paco Palma.

Paco Palma, according to Ged, was a child prodigy and is one of the finest flamenco and rock guitar virtuosi around. I was therefore a little surprised that Ged had not brought Benjy the Baritone Ukulele with him, as I imagined that Ged might be going over to Paco’s place for a jam, or perhaps that Ged had been engaged by Paco to provide some neophyte instruction on the finer details of alzapúa or rasgueado or whatever.

I thought we might visit the Oval on the way to Lord’s, as we were just round the corner from there and had bags of time, but Ged insisted that we go straight to Lord’s.

“Whoah, Dumbo,” said Ged. “Steady, boy,” as I excitedly accelerated to see the actual ground.

Soon enough, it came into view; the hallowed turf, that lush field of dreams, the home of cricket itself. “It’s a bit smaller than I expected, Ged.  And where’s the pavilion gone?” I said/asked.

“You’re looking at the Nursery Ground, Dumbo,” said Ged patiently. “The main ground is over there”.

I wanted to go round with Ged to see the main ground, but he said I had to park up and watch the Nursery Ground instead.

“Can I park actually on the turf, like I did on the second pitch at Uxbridge?” I asked.

“I don’t think that would go down too well with Mr Hunt, the groundsman,” said Ged.

When Ged, Charley and Escamillo came out from their net they were in high spirits. They had met the man who coached Alex Hales when he was a youngster – at table tennis rather than cricket, but still: Alex Hales’s coach. More importantly, all of them felt they had netted much better this time, both with bat and ball. Ged had even cleaned up Charley’s stumps with one of his deceptively straight moon balls, which always makes Ged happy. We’d all had a great day.

Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.

Sam writes:

It rained on the drive from Cornwall to Somerset. We had left our 18-month old son at home, and brought along our 34-year-old friend instead. He turned out to be slightly lower maintenance.

The seating rules were not clear, so we plonked ourselves behind the bowler’s arm underneath the new pavilion.

Taunton has a lot of pavilions.

Before leaving the house, my wife had asked if I had washed the strawberries. I said yes. Mistake number one. As noon approached, she turned to me and said ‘Well done on washing the strawberries’. I told her I hadn’t actually washed them. Mistake number two. A mini argument ensued. I decided to sulk by not eating my lunch until 2pm.

Our friend suggested we “do a circuit”. My wife didn’t know what that meant. We explained the concept of doing a circuit. We left it until the break between innings. Mistake number three.

There were lots of pictures of Ian Botham and Sir Viv Richards on the walls. “How are we going to cope when Sir Viv Richards dies?” I asked. Nobody seemed to know.

We visited the shop to buy a mini cricket set for our son, then the bookshop to pick up a cricket-themed romance novel for £1.

I discovered a programme from the 1992 England v Pakistan Test at Edgbaston. I once owned that programme, aged seven. Leafing through, it brought back some overwhelming emotions. If I had a therapist, I would have been straight on the phone to him.

I had brought along some Waitrose Country Slices, to much ridicule. “They look vile,” my friend said. All the more for me, I thought gleefully. I ate all six.

In the afternoon we started feeling sleepy and went in search of refreshment. I ordered a latte and discovered a tea bag hidden inside. “That can’t be right”, I said. Nobody seemed to know.

Marcus Trescothick was wandering around the perimeter. “Must be nice to walk around like you own the place,” my wife said.

Back in Cornwall, we went for a curry. We skipped starters and poppadoms. I had prawn saag and lemon rice. My wife offered to drive the rest of the way home so I could have another pint.

We finished the day scrolling through YouTube trying to find footage of that time Gareth Batty and Peter Trego had a fight. We couldn’t find it. We ended up watching a video of Jade Dernbach showing off the contents of his kitbag.

Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.

Ged writes:

This was to be my last sighting of live cricket this season; even though it was a day one at Lord’s, I knew I was to be busy working or otherwise not around for the rest of the match.

As tradition now has it, Charley “the Gent” Malloy joins me for a day during that last County Championship match of the season.

I was starting to run out of new ideas for picnic food for this season, but Daisy had started a new weekend fad of buying amazing smoked fishes from the Polish deli in Ealing.

The weekend before this match, in a fit of over-enthusiasm, Daisy had bought, amongst other smoked delicacies, a whole smoked eel. Smoked eel is one of my favourites as well as one of hers, but a whole smoked eel is a big fella. I suggested that Daisy might donate some of the smoked eel to the Ged and Chas Picnic Benevolent Society. She agreed wholeheartedly.

The night before, I mused about the picnic and decided to safeguard proceedings by procuring some nice juicy prawns as well, so that if Chas really didn’t go for eel, I could eat two eel rolls and Chas could eat two prawn ones.

An early trip to the bakers (Championship matches start at 10.30am in September, remember) secured a couple of particularly interesting breakfast muffins and two big bagels.

Of course Chas was at the ground in good time. Of course we nabbed a couple of prime seats on death row before the start of play. Naturally I outlined the proposed picnic. Chas exclaimed that he didn’t think he’d ever tried smoked eel before but that he’d enjoy giving it a try.

So, we enjoyed our prawn muffin jobbies late morning while still on death row, then the smoked eel bagels a bit later in the day.

Chas showed little emotion in the matter of the eel bagels at the time. I think he might have mentioned that his all-time favourite remains the wild Alaskan salmon, but that hardly needs saying. He did say that he liked it, so I thought that was a pretty successful variation on our picnic theme.

The next day, however, I got a kindly thank you email from Chas (as usual) that also included the following short paragraph:

“I think I have yet another phobia – you guessed it, smoked eel! What is completely ludicrous is I actually liked it but can’t mentally cope with eating it, I’m a little troubled with all of that!”

I responded with the following wise words and links on the matter:

“Eels are simply elongated fish; nothing weird about them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eel

…unless you jelly them rather than smoke them, the former being kinda Essex weird…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jellied_eels”

No doubt Charley and I will discuss the matter of eels some more when next we meet, which at the time of writing up this match report (April 2016) will be very soon indeed – like, next week. But I’ve taken the hint, so it won’t be “eel meat again” for the start of the 2016 season.

Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.

Balladeer writes:

One of the few things I knew was vital was preparation. One doesn’t just take any old food to The Home of Cricket. So I pondered my options. Waitrose? M&S? Selfridges, for the extra touch of privately educated class?

Alas, I also had to pick up some washing tablets, so Sainsbury’s it was. But I did at least go for the Taste The Difference range. I was particularly proud of my tomato and red pepper ciabatta, containing, as it did, a cricket pun in its very name.

So did I “rock up” – as the young folks say when they’re not busy trading STIs like they’re Pokémon cards (so I hear) – to Lord’s in good time to get lost and wander aimlessly around, trying to find (a) where one buys tickets and (b) where one sits.

I chose the bottom of the Mound Stand, the coldest bit of the entire stadium. Eventually my cricketing friends, Troubadour and Minstrel, arrived to chip me out and move me into the sun. Which happened to be another part of the bottom of the Mound Stand, twenty feet to my right.

As I was slowly partaking of my rosé and Troubadour of her white, we discussed the nonsense that were ICC alcohol regulations.

“The MCC outright ignores them,” Troubadour informed me. “As for the Oval, nobody checked when I decanted an entire bottle of red into an orange squash carton.”

I made a note on my iPhone, in between checking whether I’d won a “star comment” award on the Cricinfo liveblog. (I had.)

The rest of the day mostly revolved around staring at the back of Oliver Hannon-Dalby’s head (OHD being, incidentally, a ganglotron of the highest order), so I shall cut straight to the three most distressing parts of it.

(3) Two crows gathering on one of the scoreboards, three woodpigeons on the awning, and one seagull on the pitch, making me worry for a cricket-themed remake of Hitchcock’s “The Birds”;

(2) Troubadour, being of the female persuasion, being mistaken for a lazy member of the cleaning staff, and being chased into the one open ladies’ lavatory by a man under that belief. Oddly enough, sometimes women come to watch the cricket as well;

(1) My ciabatta turning out to be focaccia, removing any punning potential; and having gruyere on top. Thus making it completely inedible, because gruyere is disgusting.

“Don’t throw it away!” said Troubadour. “We’ll eat it.”

One focaccia out of four later, they were duly thrown away.

Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.

You may or may not know that the one quality we always look for in a piece of writing is brevity. If you have submitted a match report and seen it hacked to a skeleton, you will know this.

Ged has submitted countless match reports. We semi-regularly tell him to keep them short.

Last time we told Ged we like short writing, he responded by producing a 2,500 word report on a match between Warwickshire and Middlesex, told from four different perspectives.

To save innocent homepage visitors’ scrolling fingers, we have published it here.

Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.