Good afternoon sports fans, hope all’s well with you! I’m currently sat in the official All The Cricket staff car, waiting for our Editor at Large to finish at the hair dressers whilst listening to the England Vs Sri Lanka test and I’ve suddenly realised I owe you a blog…………some top, professional sports commentary here! Any way, better late than never!
It’s half way through the English test summer and half way through the second Test at Lords and England are well ahead of this game.
Sri Lanka won the toss and Lanka Skipper Dhananjaya de Silva opted, oddly, to bowl! Thursday was a beautiful day in North London with the sun beating down over Cricket HQ, a batting day at Lords if ever you’ve seen one but Sri Lanka had other ideas!
Certainly at first SL’s decision seemed to be justified with England openers Ben Duckett and Dan Lawrence out for 40 and 9 respectively. Stand in English skipper Ollie Pope continued his poor run of form, being dismissed for just a single run……….I suspect he needs to find some runs or face excommunication!
Next to the crease however, was one Joseph Edward Root. Joe Root, Yorkshireman, is often spoken about as the greatest English batter of all time, what is certainly true is that he has spent the last 5 or 6 years rubbing shoulders with the upper echelon of world batters, Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, Babar Azam etc. Whether you think a player is great or not is subjective, but what you can’t argue with is the stats. When Joe walked out to bat Thursday afternoon he had previously achieved 32 test centuries (100 runs or more), just 1 century less than England’s all time record century maker Sir Alastair Cook. When he left the crease he had equalled the record after scoring a blistering 143 runs. A few days later, in Englands second innings Joe Root once again did what Joe Root does and scored his second century of the match, moving up to 34 test hundreds and taking the record from his old friend and mentor Sir Alastair………incredible scenes at Lords!
With able assistance from his colleagues, Root steered England to a 190 run victory over Sri Lanka to win the series with 1 game still to play. So is Joe Root the greatest England test batter of all time? For me, without a doubt. The bigger question is, is Joe simply the greatest test batter of all time, period? Well, that remains to be seen, but I wouldn’t bet against the Yorkshireman, we Tykes tend to grin when we fight!
One of Joe’s colleagues that deserves mention is 26 year old, right arm fast bowler Gus Atkinson. Atkinson was brought into the England test squad at the beginning of the summer as part of the new look bowling attack. In his first test, again at Lords, with all eyes focused on Jimmy Anderson’s retirement, Atkinson had a stunning debut. Making it onto the 5 for honour board twice as well as the 10 for honour board, an incredible achievement for the debutant. It has long since been muted that Gus is also quite a handy lower order batter and he was shown glimpses of promise in his 4 test previous to this one. As the match stood, Joe Root was holding an end, carving his way to 143 but at the other end, there was trouble. Harry Brook, Jamie Smith and the wizard Chris Woakes all came and went without troubling the scorers too much. Batting at number 8 and as cool as a well refrigerated cucumber, Gus Atkinson manipulated the ball over 2 days to score a magnificent run a ball hundred. Along with Root, Atkinson got England to a first innings score of 427 which would prove decisive in winning the game. Atkinson also went on to take another 5 wicket hall while bowling! In 6 total days of playing at cricket HQ, Atkinson has fought his way onto all 3 honour boards, completing the full set with his hundred and showing that, hopefully, hopefully, England have found a genuine all rounder………let’s not get too ahead of ourselves though!
As cricket travellers we like to try and get about at All The Cricket and a couple of week ago were able to cross the hill from glorious Yorkshire to watch the fourth and, as it turned out, last day of action of the first test at Old Trafford, Manchester. I won’t go into the game other than to say that England won and Jamie Smith, another of the English new guard, got his maiden century, well done Jamie!
It was our first time at Old Trafford so decided to make a night of it and stay over it Manchester. If you fancied doing the same then there are 2 hotels at Old Trafford which offer very attractive looking balconies over looking the pitch. It’s probably worth saying that the hotels are both Hilton’s so budget accordingly! Obviously there are more affordable accommodation options all over the city including a Premier Inn less than a mile from the ground.
As it was we were lucky enough to have the option of staying in our friend’s apartment in Ancoats. Ancoats is a bit of a distance from Old Trafford but is a great place to base yourself of you’re visiting Manchester for a night or two. The area in the Northern Quarter has great pubs, restaurants, cafe’s, bars and nightlife and is only a five minute walk to Piccadilly.
From Ancoats, should that be where you decide to stay, it’s about a hour and a half stroll across the city to Old Trafford. Alternatively you can make the five minute walk to Piccadilly and use the tram network to take you straight to the ground. I must admit at this point, I’d had to go into work on the morning of the trip and had more to do than I imagined, pesky beer! We got to our digs later than we we were expecting and not wanting to miss any of the cricket we got an Uber over to the ground.
When we got to old Trafford we were straight in without any real queuing and, via a bar, found our seats.
I’d be lying if I told you that drink at an international cricket ground was cheap but sometimes when you’re out for the day, you’ve got to take the hit and the Amstel wasn’t bad.
Settled in with a beer and a rucksack full of pack up, we got down to watching some cricket. The sunshine was only very marginally interrupted by some rain, what do you expect, it’s the English summer!
All in all it was a cracking afternoon at the cricket and England wrapped things up with a win. We took some lunch with us but there was plenty of food venders around the ground as well as ice cream vans and coffee stalls, our Editor at Large Emily had a flat white mid afternoon which she tells me was very nice if a little over priced, naturally……….I had a pint of lager.
After the game we headed back to Ancoats and set out to find a bite to eat. Just on the edge of Piccadilly there is a Bundobust, specialising in Indian street food and their own craft beer. We at All The Cricket like a Bundo and with it being so close to the digs we jumped in there. During August Bundo were doing a special menu of Indo-Mexican mash up, it seemed rude not to try it so we went for the platter for 2 washed down with a couple of pints of the Mexican lager brewed for the event. I couldn’t tell you what about the lager was particularly Mexican but it was delicious, as was the food!
After our food we wandered the short distance from Piccadilly back to Ancoats but before heading back to the apartment we dropped in for a quick drink at Port Street Beer House.
Port Street is a top notch real ale and craft beer bar right within Ancoats nightlife and it’s a cracker. I deliver my breweries beer to Port Street regularly so it’s always great to get the chance to drop in when not working, grab a beer and chat with the staff. PSBH has a great range of cask and keg beer plus loads of bottled beer, definitely worth a trip if you find yourself in Manchester.
We had a great day out in Manchester for the cricket but a visit to the city is recommended whether heading to Old Trafford or not. If you do find yourself is Cottonopolis for any reason these are just a few suggestions of how you could make a day of it and remember to drink and watch cricket responsibly.
I’m sorry again that this blog is late, I’m hoping now the summer is over to get into a bit more of a rhythm but hopefully it’s been insightful and you’ve enjoyed having a read.
Until next time, all the best.
Nick
All The Cricket 
Leave a comment