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T<\/span>he performance of the Lord\u2019s pitch during its previous Test, against New Zealand in June, was so appalling<\/a> that it was followed by an apology from the MCC<\/a> and a scathing unsatisfactory rating from the International Cricket Council.<\/p>\n The MCC got ahead of the game in this Test by issuing a statement early in the fourth innings, reassuring us that \u201cindependent specialists\u201d were \u201cconfident that there are solutions to improving pitch quality and performance\u201d.<\/p>\n If the pitch being used for this game has not provoked the outcry prompted by its immediate neighbour earlier in the summer, it has still generated extravagant movement for the seamers, as well as occasional unpredictable bounce, and generally failed to silence the grumbling that has long soundtracked games here.<\/p>\n At least things now are better than they used to be. In 1859 Surrey turned up for a match, took one look at the pitch and left. Five years later Sussex did the same. That might not have been an option for Pakistan, but the kind of deliveries that did for Jacob Bethell against New Zealand and Emilio Gay in England\u2019s second innings here are straight out of the playbook of 160 years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cAt Lord\u2019s it was a common occurrence to have three shooters and the other ball out of an over of four bump right over the batsman\u2019s head,\u201d recalled Alfred Lubbock, who as well as being one of the finest batters of the 1860s won a bronze medal at the pole vault in the 1868 British athletics championships and played in the 1875 FA Cup final.<\/p>\n (The Lubbocks were a family of sporting polymaths: his brother Edgar also played first-class cricket, reached the third round at Wimbledon and won the FA Cup twice; another brother, John, went into politics and created bank holidays, originally called St Lubbock\u2019s Days in his honour, as well as writing several important books about insects and coining the terms paleolithic and neolithic).<\/p>\n This has been a curious year for this ground, a summer of nationwide drought in which the two Lord\u2019s Tests have been affected hugely by rain and in many ways just as well: without it the first match would have been over in two days, and this one perhaps in three. In between the two games it was announced that the World Test Championship final next year will be played at the Oval, because of concerns about Lord\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cOur ground is not alone in facing challenges around pitch preparation and the executive have had productive conversations with their counterparts at other venues facing similar challenges both within cricket and across the wider sporting world,\u201d the MCC statement added, noting that \u201cfour to six leading experts with diverse skillsets and knowledge\u201d were being sought to form an agronomy advisory group. Sometimes the old answers are the best answers: if in doubt, form a committee.<\/p>\n Some facts, then, about this summer: the dismissal of Saud Shakeel for 97 on Sunday means this was the 43rd year in which Lord\u2019s has hosted two or more Tests, and the first of those in which nobody has scored a century<\/a> (in fact only four batters have reached three figures if you add all their scores together<\/a>, and three of them needed four innings to do it). The last year in which no names were added to the batting honours board was 1995.<\/p>\n Despite Shakeel\u2019s efforts, the batting average at Lord\u2019s this year<\/a>, 16.57, is the lowest since 1958, when in the ground\u2019s only Test Jim Laker and Tony Lock took 14 wickets between them as New Zealand were bowled out for 47 and 74.<\/p>\n
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