Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

I really need to have about thirty options for this. Because cricket excels in the variety of the exotic and seemingly intriguing places it is played. Bourda, Georgetown, Guyana. Basin Reserve. Chittagong. Bulawayo. Whatever the reality, from afar, these are exotic and flavourful names. Karachi. Old Trafford, The Oval, London. So many.

During Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, Charters and Caldicott obsess about hearing news from the Old Trafford Test. By the end of the film Manchester feels like some mysterious and distant place where wonderful and esoteric deeds are carried out. Especially as they are far from home and seek news from familiar places.

Such is the attraction of the venues where cricket is played. I make no claim for the UK, but cricket does seems to be played in remarkably interesting places.

If you come in to bat in the heat of India or the Caribbean. Or the low clouds of New Zealand and the UK. In front of the crowds of the Caribbean. It is 40-4. Where is the best place to score runs? Or at least, which venue excites you?

Obviously, all of these. The most amazing ground I've seen is the MCG. What could be better than raising a bat through the 360 degree disc of the stadium, with the biggest crowd in world cricket potentially watching. If i was picking a cricket ground to go on to compete in the best ground in any sport, it would be the MCG.

Yet, being in the big stand in Barbados, is the best place to be, for the magic of the crowd. For the atmosphere, and intensity of support.

Yet, I find Trent Bridge the most lovable of grounds. Because it hasn't really lost touch with how a county ground feels, which is intimate and convivial.

But if I had to name anywhere, it would be India. If you looked back on your career, and you had hundreds in Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai, how could you not feel anything but utterly thrilled. Maybe this is because they are the most alien conditions for an English player. And maybe it is because these are huge cities in the home of cricket. And maybe it's just listening to old timers talking about their big scores back in the fifties in India. But I think I'd pick Mumbai.

The Ageas Bowl, being a Hampshire fan and been there numerous times to watch Hampshire, that would be special for me personally.

Yours would be the third ton at the venue. Might rain though.

The MCG on Boxing Day against the Poms. That's a no brainer.

Very tempting. Against the Aussies of course.

When you think of achieving this, you think of an attack. Lillee, Thomson, Walker. Bedi, Venkat, Chandrasekhar. Donald, deVilliers, Pollock.

Melbourne for me. It's a big ground as well as certainly more pacy than the types that i have played in Mumbai. The long boundary grounds offers a different challenge about pacing the innings.

Amazing banks of support as well. Scores high on history.

the old Adelaide Oval


before they pulled it down!

I suppose all the grounds have changed. All the hills have gone, in Australia. I think half the MCG was rebuilt. Sydney is being rebuilt. Apart from the Pavilion and the Ladies stand, the SCG isn't that special. Though historic. The Wanderers seems to be a whole new ground. Trent Bridge is new, apart from the pavilion. It's the timelessness of the name that survives.

The claps and cheer by girls when batting is more remembered than that by men's support even though they are usually more in numbers.

With the ground, you get to choose which girls you like though.

Lord's for me.

Sensible choice for a gentleman if I may say so sir.

Ooooh tough choice

There isn't a more picturesque test ground than Newlands, that alone will have a calming and inspiring effect when walking on to bat.

Also scoring a ton in India would be fun, just so I can hold up a piece of paper with "IPL not a patch on the County Championship" written in celebration. That would be worth a fine and match ban.