Observations from Lords

Having taken the day off work and spent the day at Lord's in the over-optimistic hope of a tense finish to the first test vs South Africa, only to witness a flat and anticlimactic day's play on a lifeless and benign Lord's pitch. Andrew Miller sums it up well on Cricinfo, but here are my burbles from the day, in no particular order...

- What on earth are the rules for an early finish to a draw-bound match?! The 'bad light' ruse after Amla had got his century was nonsense - I was applying suncream while the players were off the pitch! Clearly none of the players wanted to be there any more, but the way the match was concluded was something of a farce for the paying crowd.

- With Sidebottom, fielding at fine leg by us in the Tavern Stand, clearly in trainers for the final session and Anderson bowled into the ground, the third new ball was taken by Broad and...Collingwood. Which takes the tally of England new-ball bowlers this test to six (as the spinners Panesar and KP were used in failing light on day three). That must be some sort of record!

- Vaughan never stops tinkering as a captain. It clearly wasn't England's day in the field on an unhelpful pitch and against obdurate batting, but I don't think we saw the same field twice through the day. Unlike an indecisive club captain though, the changes - at times, every ball - were always in place before the bowler was back at his run-up.

- The number of overs Panesar bowled over the wicket was baffling. A disciplined McKensie played everything outside leg with his pad, and any chance of taking a wicket was essentially eliminated.

- It was impressive to watch Ambrose effortlessly standing up to the stumps off Sidebottom (though it probably reflected how lifeless the pitch was). Maybe he was trying to sell his keeping to the selectors after his dropped catch yesterday!

- Given that, to my mind, there are not currently any undroppables from or shoe-ins into the England pace attack from a pool of Anderson, Broad, Flintoff, Sidebottom, Jones and Hoggard, and given the three days' toil (and injury niggles) of the current attack, the selectors could do worse than rest a bowler or two for the next test starting on Friday. Given the current squad (today's XI plus Flintoff), this would probably entail Flintoff for Sidebottom (and require a fit Freddie!).

- The queueing system for getting into Lord's is bizarre. Much to the amusement of the American and the Canadian that I was taking for their first experience of cricket, we were first directed by stewards at the East Gate to head over to the North Gate for the queue. After about half an hour of this queue, we reached the front, and were sent...round the block again to join another 15 minute queue back where we started!