Even if spending eight hours getting pissed in fancy dress while clutching replica sandpaper is your idea of a living hell, you have to admit that Edgbaston’s Hollies Stand made itself known. Tim Paine started the first Test by arguing that Edgbaston was not in the top 15 most intimidating venues in the world, but Cameron Bancroft and David Warner experienced a physical hit as they strode out into that wall of sound on Thursday morning. The ground calls itself “Fortress Edgbaston” for a reason, and Australia had not won there in any format since 2001 – until Monday, when the drawbridge fell in and the turrets tumbled down.
Already a crowd-pleaser, and the first ground to hold a senior floodlit game, Edgbaston’s £32m redevelopment in 2010-11 brought new stands and increased capacity and stature.
It is not the only stadium to have grown ever bigger and ever bolder. Despite being a sucker for a county outground, complete with darting swallows and white marquees selling meticulously laid out and slightly soft two-fingered Kit Kats, I’d agree that the behemoths have come into their own this summer. Looming large over their various cities, they have dominated the landscape on match days, their backs to the Bullring or football’s Old Trafford, or Regent’s Park or the Trent, their settings vast skies of banking grey or breathy blue.
English grounds have never been cavernous – Lord’s is the biggest with a capacity for 28,000 souls. But the upside is that they are easier to fill, and an atmosphere builds quickly.
The World Cup games were largely packed to bursting, bar the usual problems with sponsors not taking up their seats. Lord’s was a wonder at the final, stuffed to the last inch, with staff perching on walls and a pavilion that threw off years of buttoned-up politeness in an explosion of super-over joy.
Headingley is never going to win any beauty prizes, though I’ve a soft spot for the old girl, squeezed as she is by rows of terraces and the rugby ground, but the new stand that she shares with Leeds Rhinos is a thing of Meccano-like glory. She hosted a couple of cracking World Cup matches, though the Afghanistan v Pakistan game was marred by the odd bit of bottle-throwing crowd trouble. The Roses T20 game, on a gorgeous summer night a couple of weeks ago, was also chock-a-block with happy punters.
Old Trafford, too, has had a fantastic year, with a bumper round of World Cup matches – every one a thriller in a different way – and under largely and remarkably brilliant skies. India v Pakistan had all the props, even if Pakistan couldn’t make a game of it; Eoin Morgan lit up England v Afghanistan; West Indies came within inches of a remarkable victory against New Zealand; before a pause for calm at West Indies v India followed by South Africa upsetting Australia in the semi-final place-setter. Then the semi-final itself between India and New Zealand, a game that – until the final unfolded so spectacularly – was the best of the tournament. The two big red pill boxes that squat either side of the pavilion were complemented by the rickety temporary stand, its boney structure articulating up into the sky, rocking and rolling with the crowd as the tension swayed. Even on an empty County Championship day, it still has a strange appeal.
Travel back in time to the two other landmark years in recent English cricketing history and you see how things have changed. In 1981, Ian Botham carried out his deeds of derring-do at a selection of dumps – faded concrete palaces of knock-me-down fences, crumbling terraces and dodgy toilets.
By 2005 things had improved: Lord’s had been spruced up and admitted women members, while the Oval opened its redeveloped OCS stand at the Vauxhall End a few months before the final Ashes Test. Trent Bridge was still lovely, if smaller, and the Hollies Stand was in place for the second closest Test in history at Edgbaston. Old Trafford, however, lost its place at the top table not long afterwards, its facilities judged not up to scratch. So Lancashire threw the kitchen sink at redevelopment, even picketing Trafford town hall with mascot Lanky the giraffe, then lifting and twisting the pitch by 90 degrees.
Something of an unwise battle for international matches then ensued, exacerbated by a blind bidding process. The Riverside, Cardiff and Southampton were thoughtlessly encouraged to overreach, only to find themselves with marvellous new stadiums but without games with which to fill them. Durham were particularly hard hit, but their World Cup games this year were a pleasure to attend, despite happening when the semi-finalists had mostly worked themselves out.
Other things have changed for the better, too: Edgbaston has joined the Oval and Lord’s in the battle to become the UK’s greenest cricket ground, reducing waste and energy use, powered by renewable energy, going plastic free and working to reduce its carbon footprint. What’s more, the architectural marvels can now be shown off in all their splendour with TV’s new favourite toy, spider-cam. England must just hope that the first Test capitulation was but a passing nightmare, because not even the most splendid structure will be able to disguise an Ashes rout.
• This is an extract taken from the Spin, the Guardian’s weekly cricket email. To subscribe, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
