None of the other players’ behaviour will receive even passing mention.This is what happens when a baseball player does something that in British sports would be considered really bad, say the equivalent of the Cantona incident. In analogous circumstances Neville’s crimes, not to mention those of the poor beleaguered Czech Republic team, would not have merited a raised eyebrow. Short of a baseball player shooting an opponent, punishments for bad behaviour are fabulously lenient.
Take that staple of baseball fun, “the bench-clearing brawl”. Glasses chink and people hitch their legs up underneath their bodies to ride sidesaddle into lunch. And all the ice boxes are exactly where their owners left them, because at Lord’s they are safe Safer here by far than in their own homes.. Viewed from the United States, football’s yellow card rules appear brutally unforgiving. If you were to apply to Gary Neville the sanctions standards of American baseball, there is no way the two cautions he incurred in the earlier rounds of Euro 96 would have ruled him out of today’s semi- final against Germany.

At worst, a baseball player found guilty of shoving or tripping an opponent might be told by the management of his team that it might be a good idea to undergo a course in sensitivity training But even that is to exaggerate. He drinks from two bottles, one containing colourless fluid, the other something pink as geraniums. He tells me an innocuous anecdote about one of his regular customers in the lift, which I would like to recount but dare not for fear that Lord’s would visit itself terribly upon its steward. Lord’s is a genteel place but one fairly seething with oedipal rage.It is one o’clock. The players troop off and spectators swarm down staircases, over concourses, into action. In the Compton Bar a weary man pours UHT milk into the black plastic dustbin provided and drops the empty plastic UHT container into his cup of coffee. He curses mildly, shakes his head and walks back out into the sunlight.Meanwhile, behind the Warner Stand the grassy picnic area is alive again It is taking on the look of a garden party.

Then the ball is released, the mouthful swallowed and the overspill of wobbling flesh at the steward’s neck retreats back within the rim of his collar The ball beats the bat. “He’s bowlin’ well, that boy,” says the steward, rotating his head benevolently to address his nearest neighbour, which is me “Y’know, I like the look of that boy D’you mind if I smoke?”He is a charming man He works the lift to the private boxes in the Mound Stand This year he has had Mick Jagger and J Paul Getty in. The Lancashire swing bowler’s knees pump as he runs, and as he lengthens his stride before delivery, the steward’s ears and the bowler’s knees for a moment become synchronised in motion. and you? Your moments of cricketing glory?”"Well, I haven’t scored a century yet…”A West Indian gent, carrying his MCC’s steward’s moss green jacket and a bag, settles himself in the seat in front It is 12.30; half an hour to lunch. He unpacks a huge baguette and begins to work his way through it as Peter Martin chunters in from the Nursery End to Srinath The steward’s ears go up and down as he chews.

Alan Mullally pitches short and the ball balloons off Dravid’s head. There is a gentle expulsion of air from the nostrils of Older Voice.”Um… a run out?”"I didn’t have any glory at all, I suppose.” He sighs again “Didn’t get picked very often Never seemed to score more than about 20 Don’t know why, really…”"Oh.”There is another pause. I don’t think I was a key member of the team.”"But you must have had a moment of glory A brilliant catch? A big six? You know… “So, what were your moments of personal cricketing glory?”There is a good 10 seconds of silence during which it is impossible not to think of an empty bucket plummeting down the shaft of a deep, dry well.”Oh, I don’t know, really,” replies Older Voice, evasively.”There must have been some?”"Well…” Older Voice sighs “Well, I did most of my cricketing for my house at school Didn’t play very often Hardly at all in fact. He is kitted out in the warm-weather togs favoured by middle-aged Englishmen in the pomp of fatherhood: big khaki shorts, socks, sandals, pink polo shirt, a sucked-looking floppy cricket hat – baby clothes in all but size and context His son wears a baseball cap and a frown “Yeah Sorry.”In the row behind, another tussle.

The voices are public school, one ex, one current; one past its youth, the other full of it.”So…” It is the younger voice, filling a pause that has endured since the last pass of the vacuum flask. You can watch dads and their sons doing their stuff.For instance: a middle-class son is restrained by his father from leaping up in the middle of an over to visit the gents “You know why, don’t you?” dad says reprovingly. “Someone must be accountable…” His partner made a dark sound in his throat but did not reply.So I like it up there on the Edrich top tier because in my mind it sets me above snobbery (which is, let’s face it, in itself an act of snobbery by internal memo rather than by exhibition) Here, you can participate without actually participating. They seem to be miles away in several senses, immobilised certainly by distance, possibly by fatigue, disappointment and pink gin They were all fighter pilots and submarine commanders once. And when they do move, they walk slowly around their cloisters in twos and threes under panama hats looking pained, their eyes travelling ahead reluctantly, freighted with dread.”Accountable,” gloomed one, without looking at his partner as they passed slowly through the Mound Stand ambulatory, mid-morning. Opposite, across the grass, up the slope, behind a picket fence in the lap of their giant red pavilion, sit the men in orange and yellow ties, the proprietors. At all times you’re aware of your place, and of being patronised.