Cricket
London has two Test cricket grounds (a rare distinction in world cricket but perhaps not surprising due to London's size): Lord's and The Oval. Lord's, located in the leafy suburb of St John's Wood, is home of Middlesex CCC and The MCC. Lord's is also the spiritual home of cricket. The Twenty20 Cup, Minor Counties Cricket Championship and many other Championship finals are held at Lord's. The England and Wales Cricket Board's offices are at Lord's Cricket Ground in London.
The Oval in Kennington, home of Surrey CCC, hosted the first FA Cup final and continued to do so (bar 1873) up until 1892. It also hosted England's first home international football match.
Cricket is very well organised and established within London and is the second most popular sport after football. Essex County Cricket Club has formerly used venues throughout London including Ilford, Leyton Cricket Ground, Romford and Billericay. Kent County Cricket Club also regularly play at Beckenham.
Read more about this topic: Sport In London
Famous quotes containing the word cricket:
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“All cries are thin and terse;
The field has droned the summer’s final mass;
A cricket like a dwindled hearse
Crawls from the dry grass.”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)