At the zoo

My youngest son and I were there for the first day of the inaugural day/night test match at Edgbaston. I hope it will be a special memory for him as his first ever test match and glimpse of his England heroes, specifically Cook and Root who were certainly on display.

I've heard Thursday described as “A poor day's cricket” but from our point of view it was fairly ideal. For a five year old a spell of more than four balls without a shot and a couple of overs without a boundary is tedious, so the fact that the first day of the test match had a touch of T20 about the batting did not go unappreciated. He spends a worrying proportion of his free time watching highlights of Ashes series so his picture of Test cricket has all the slower periods of play edited out which is essentially how Thursday felt.

We sat in Edgbaston's family stand which was a new experience for me. In spite of having five of my own part of me feared I might find myself sandwiched between clusters of wailing children. Instead we sat next to two nice lads who were really pleasant to talk to, if lacking in imagination as to the solution to England's batting woes: “Dunno, get on the phone to KP?” The most disruptive influence turned out to be the loud banter of the couple behind us who seemed determined that the entire stand benefit from their wit and wisdom. I kept trying to turn off TMS in my headphones and wondering why the chuntering didn't stop. I felt that we were really safe and welcome and never had any of the stress which could easily have interfered with taking a young child along.

Edgbaston, of course, as well as creating a stand which welcomes families into an environment almost expletive and obscenity free, also has the Hollies a stand where a wild time, complete with a costume party zoo and warm beer sloshing down your shirt collar is assured. We were well placed to enjoy the fun from a distance, which for me was the best way, although each to his own.

Sitting elsewhere in the ground has been less predictable, for cricket takes all sorts. So many of the seats in the family stand were taken by adults and I understand why, along with those who found they were the only ones available, some would want to ensure that they are not subject to the spilling of beer, as happened to us last year, or the tipsy fan falling into their lap which I've fortunately only witnessed. When at Old Trafford last month we sat in front of three mates who were determinedly on the lash I wouldn't go as far as to say that the experience was ruined, but it was certainly changed by their constant, asinine conversation, too loud to ignore, too bizarre to forget.

“Go on, feel his, it's huge even when it's not hard”

“No.”

“Go on!”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I only met him today.”

The overwhelming emotion I remember feeling is gratitude that I didn't have any children present to explain the behaviour of three apparent grown- ups to.

The memory of them is inextricably bound up with all to briefly watching Jimmy bowling from the James Anderson End and seeing Moeen finish on a sublimely crafted 67. The boys in the back row were occasionally disgusting, often funny, even, at times sad and poignant. Beneath the almost continual banality was at least one fine cricket brain which gave accidental vent to the occasional insight. They were not neighbours we would have chosen, but at the same time I wouldn't quite be without them. Yes, you wonder why they bother when they could just as easily have been lounging on a beach or in a beer garden especially by the end of the day when the lightest of the bunch admitted he could no longer make out the players from a general blurry soup. Yet a match with politely applauding crowd, brushing away the crumbs of afternoon tea to rise sedately in acknowledgement of another hundred is nice but a roaring throng jumping up to cry “ Ali, Ali, Ali Ali Cook!” is something else. Abstemious Moeen being roared on by a party stand who's beer snake had reached serpentine proportions probably felt much the same way. It takes all sorts to make a world, and the world of cricket is no exception. The cricket 'badger' has to be prepared to put up with the rest of the menagerie.