Ringing the changes
On Thursday morning Kate Cross, of Lancashire, England and the No Balls podcast, became the first woman to ring the bell before an international fixture at Old Trafford – and they have not just been changing their ringers but ringing the changes. Half an hour earlier Cross’s county, international and podcasting teammate, Alex Hartley, who had mounted a small-scale campaign to have a floodlight named after herself, saw her wish granted – though it had to be pointed out to her, after she managed to walk right past it on her way into the ground without noticing that it suddenly had her picture on it. “I’m beaming with pride,” she said on TMS later. “Just wait till she gets turned on later, she’s going to look great. I wonder if I can phone Lancashire at 4am and say, ‘Will you turn my light on?’ Because I can see it from my house.” Also getting christened this week: Sky’s commentary team are now housed inside the Michael Atherton OBE Suite, while the new building on the east side of the ground features Jimmy’s Bar, which is dominated by a large photograph of England’s record wicket-taker that could charitably be described as “moody”, and less charitably as “serial killer in a second-rate thriller”.
Famous last words
The programme features an interview with Ben Duckett. “At times I didn’t believe I’d get to this point,” he says. “It’s nice to be at a stage now where I can walk out in a Test and score runs.” Cue, inevitably, a six-ball one in an innings where the other top-order England batters have cashed in.
Not seeing red
One thing that does not have its own name – or, for now, any beds – is the new hotel development, “the latest addition to Old Trafford’s thriving conference and events business”, which is marked on the ground map on Lancashire’s website simply as “New Hotel”. The original hotel, opened in 2017, was designed by the architects ICA to work harmoniously with the ground’s existing structures – or, as they put it, “as a futurist, red extrusion, mirroring The Point conference centre in its form and in its relationship with the Pavilion. Together, the three buildings provide a real sense of drama that enhances the arena experience.” The new hotel extension was designed by BDP, who were also responsible for The Point, but this time produced a taller, squarer and entirely grey structure that does less to enhance the arena experience. The only nod to the scarlet cladding that unifies the other two recent developments is the padded executive seating in front of the new building, upholstered in precisely the same hue – though given that for major events those seats are managed by a company that covers them in their own shocking pink-liveried sheaths, they might as well not have bothered.
