'Enjoying' cricket at Lord's

There is always a wistful tinge to the last game of the Lord's season, as Saturday's ODI was; as I leave the ground, there is the gloomy realisation that it will be next year before I next hear the five-minute bell and then see the umpires walk out to start the day's play, but still, I'm at one of my favourite places in the world. I always enjoy going to Lord's on a warm summer's day, even more so if there is cricket being played. Though I've been coming regularly for only thirty years and am thus a relative newcomer, I feel at home at the home of cricket. Even if the cricket is dreadful, I am sure to see some friends and have some pleasant conversation.

Thousands of the cricket-besotted turned up for similar reasons and will have taken equal satisfaction from another day at HQ, happy just to have been there.

However, when the BBC radio commentators inform their listeners that the crowd “are enjoying it” or “purring contentedly”, they seem to be saying more than that people like being at Lord's: there is a definite implication that they are taking some pleasure in the actual cricket.

Hearing those remarks, I wondered where they were dreaming it up from, because there was no evidence of people enjoying the cricket anywhere near where I was sitting in the Warner Stand. Nor was there any in the Pavilion or any other part of the ground I went to.

The cricket was simply awful, apart from the spectacle of Brett Lee knocking stumps over at the end of England's feeble batting effort. When Australia batted, they merely went efficiently about their business. I don't mean to suggest they were under any obligation to try and entertain the crowd with spectacular fireworks, but it would have been more fun if they had.

Some were angry, a few outraged, but most were just disappointed - to a greater or lesser degree, depending on what their expectations had been. Mine had been pretty low and England only sank narrowly below them, so it was no worse than seeing the bus leave the stop just as I left the ground and having to wait a few minutes for the next, but I think all of us would take exception to the allegation that we had enjoyed it.

My companions and I agreed that enjoyment would have been entirely inappropriate, anyway. We were here as punishment. This was the penance we had to do for winning the Ashes, for the joy we had felt when we had beaten Australia at Lord's for the first time in 75 years, for the fun we had had at the World Twenty20 (especially as England had won a World Cup), for thinking that Ravi Bopara's hundred against West Indies had signalled the arrival of a major new talent – in other words, for being English cricket fans at Lord's. I hope the cricketing gods accepted our collective sacrifice.

Another friend I bumped into said he had come to practice supporting Australia before doing it for real when they come back to Pakistan's new home ground, which rather surprised me: I cannot conceive of supporting Australia, and particularly not against Pakistan, who rank third in my affections behind England and West Indies. Well, so be it: he and I will be on opposite sides during the second of next season's Tests.

Ah, yes. Next season. We'll be back at Lord's again next season. That sounds good.