Professional Sports in London - Cricket

Cricket is England’s summertime team sport and has seen a massive resurgence in interest over the last few years especially after the England team were succesful against Australia in a 2005 series called The Ashes.

Cricket’s a game that has a variety of formats and can be played over one, three, four or five days. International cricket is the biggest draw for spectators and is played throughout the year around the world. Every summer England will play a couple of series against touring teams and many of these games but by no means all will be played in London.

The two main cricket venues in London are Lord’s in the St John’s Wood area and The Oval in Kennington, south London, just over Vauxhall Bridge. Both are great places to spend a day watching a game. As well as being the home of the England and Wales Cricket Board, Lord’s is where Middlesex County Cricket Club are based and play most of their home matches unless England are playing there, in which case Middlesex have a number of other venues ranging from Uxbridge, Richmond and Ealing in west London to Southgate in north London. Lord’s also hosts the final of the C&G Trophy, a knockout competition for one day cricket involving the 18 first class(Major) county teams and 20+ minor county teams.

Surrey County Cricket Club are based at The Oval and have been since 1845. The cricket season runs from April until September in England and while the tickets for England international games are always in high demand, its a lot easier to see county sides play. Especially try to get to see a Twenty20 game at Lord’s or the Oval. Twenty20 is the newest and shortest version of the game, it last’s about three hours, is all action and has been hugely popular with fans. Weeknight games in June and July sell out pretty quick and create a fantastic atmosphere.

Ticket prices vary with the length of the game. The three/four day county games at Lord’s this season were selling for around £12 per day, the one day Pro40 matches for £15 and the short Twenty20 games went up to £20 reflecting the demand for tickets. Next summer the England team will play major games against India and the West Indies, tickets for these are normally snapped up months ahead so checkout the Lord’s website for further ticket information.

The Oval will also host these teams in internationals in summer 2007 and again book early to guarantee a great day’s cricket. If you don’t manage to get to see the game you want live, SkySports has excellant live tv coverage of all formats of the game throughtout the cricket season.

The Oval also hosts an annual Aussie Rules football game between two top Australian teams and has done since 1987. Geelong beat Port Adelaide in October 2006 in front of 12,500 Aussie Rules fans, unfortunately there won’t be a game in autumn 2007 but Surrey County Cricket Club and the AFL have a new deal to guarantee the fixture between 2008 and 2010.