Day 5 - The Home of Cricket, Covent Garden & Leicester Square

Somethings one is just passionate about. You revere certain things to point of making them holy. Lords Cricket Ground is a holy place for me. I cannot explain the feeling when I first entered the stadium on 29th August 2010. There's one more feeling left though....the one that a player feels on laying foot on the holy grass......

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Lords - The Home of Cricket

I had made up my mind I wanted to see the England vs Pakistan Test at Lords irrespective of the ticket price. It was co-incidental that I was in London and a Lords test was on. It would have been unwise to miss it. Now, it turns out that I got a 30 GBP ticket which is one of the cheapest at Lords. They told me that an India-England test would be double the price and that an Australia-England cheapest ticket would not be available under 100 GBP.

The entire experience was completely different from an Indian stadium. Now I must confess here that this was the first test I was ever watching! Yes, a cricket freak like me had never seen a test match at a stadium before even in India. But I have limited overs cricket watching experience and it is just very different from this. Security checking is smooth here and you’re allowed to take most things innocent people would take inside including 2 pints of beer. It’s almost a family’s day out once you’re inside. So many small activities going inside and it’s amazing to listen to conversations of old Englishmen discussing cricket. Most of them with those hats and coats that you can see in the 1970s videos of tests in England.

What was also very new for me was the audience response. Clap, Clap, Clap, Clap and stop. Hahaha! No shouting, no hooting. A few young English supporters trying to start the Mexican Wave but the oldies not supporting them. A few really high Englishmen started singing but again the atmosphere didn’t quite match up for that to continue.

There was young Pakistani supporter Imran in our stand with 3-4 even younger kids who were trying hard to have fun. He kept on shouting “Do it, Do it Pakistan” and the kids would shout after him. And they made quite a noise. There was hardly anything to cheer about for Pakistan all day anyway. “Pakistan Zindabad” was equally vociferous and mockingly few Englishmen in the stand would shout the same when yet another Pakistani wicket would fall. I liked the spirit of the young Pakistanis. They shouted as long as their throats could manage. By the last session Imran had to take a lot of questions about Pakistan in our stand from Englishmen old and young. They really took his case!

For me personally it was like a pilgrimage. I don’t think I can put it in words and I will not. Watching a test at Lords and playing there has always been a dream. The first part has been fulfilled (though I would love to see an India-England or an Australia-England test) and the second part would happen too someday.......

Later, Parth and I went to Covent Garden. It is a beautiful place and one must dedicate an entire evening or even a day just roaming about in that area. The weather was lovely and I had a wonderful time roaming there all the way to Leicester Square. What I wonder though is weather the entire Great Britain just eats Italian food when eating out. Almost every alternate restaurant is an Italian restaurant here with cuisines from other countries interspersed in between.

Leicester Square is Hot!

Leicester is a happening place. It was a bank holiday weekend and parties had started very early in the evening. I saw some of the hottest women I have seen in London at Leicester Square. The men must be decent looking too, I guess.

I met a very dear friend Mr.Priyank Mahajan at Leicester Square. Parth and I waited for Mr.Mahajan at Chiquito, a Mexican restaurant chain (Finally I was not eating bread!) Chiquito food is excellent even for vegetarians like me and I would highly recommend it. The evening was spent reminiscing good old days and general catching up. Parth had to leave early and later Priyank and I ventured into ‘The Casino at the Empire’. I had quite a bright day at the casino J

I will now abruptly end this post as what happened for the remaining part of the night is not important J

Few images from Leicester Square. It was raining so best images have not been taken