Chris Rattue: It really wasn't cricket at Lord's

There is nothing so enchanting as an Ashes contest, and certainly not when the game is at Lord's.

Unless you are English, maybe. English fans might be glad they've got the first test of the series out of the way so they can look forward to happier times at their other famous cricket grounds.

Sport is a place of strange statistics, not the least that Tiger Woods won the 2000 British Open at St Andrews without landing a ball in a bunker. As someone wrote, that is not only tremendous golf, but also a tremendous fluke.

Australia's record at Lord's is just as overwhelming. They last lost a test there 71 years ago, and are unbeaten in 18 matches after the victory by Ricky Ponting's side.

The last Australian team to lose a test at "the home of cricket" had Don Bradman in it.

We are heading to a point where not only are there no Englishmen alive who played in a winning test against Australia at Lord's, but there will be no survivors from the crowd. Mind you, there were those in the latest Lord's crowd who were perfectly capable of having attended that match in 1934.

At one end of the ground sits a sightscreen about the size of a handkerchief, below which sit the ancient, dressed in the gear you associate with English public schools. The ties aren't so much loud; they positively scream at you.

These stuffy old characters appear to come and go as they please - at a pace that borders on stopped - with little regard for the game.

There were stoppages as batsmen were distracted by movement under the sightscreen, which proves that test players have remarkably good eyesight since it was hard to detect a pulse up there.

"Poor stewardship," the commentators claimed, although you doubted if these spectators would take much notice of the hired help, even if they could hear the instructions.

The odd thing about Lord's is that they have a media centre which looks as if it escaped from a Hollywood sci-fi film set. When they get the TV sequences right, War of the Worlds lands at a rest home.

As the alien creature looks on and visiting teams from this planet continue to relish this magical sporting place, the home team often falter to the sound of muffled groans or even silence.

Long may it last though, the naughty oldies and all, especially when it is a part and parcel of the most brilliant cricket contest of all.

Even though the Ashes has been lopsided in Australia's favour for a couple of decades, the rivalry, history and mystique means it still demands attention.

Where would test cricket be without the Ashes, although the game would benefit hugely if England could somehow win a series.

The odds don't look great for English joy after Australia braved their new-ball attack, then ripped through frail batting. One of the great bowling partnerships in history, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, bashed the life out of English optimism.

And England came up with the most dreadful catching you might see in test cricket. It wasn't so much the number of missed chances, seven, but how simple most were.

Repeated dropped catches, and fielding errors in general, tear at the confidence of a team. They create tensions, even if back slaps and words of encouragement are offered for medicinal purposes. Heads drop, and team-mates struggle to look each other in the eye.

England's wicketkeeper Geraint Jones didn't so much glove the ball as swat it away. Another chief offender was England's South African-born batsman Kevin Pietersen, who over-celebrated his moderate batting success and ended up way too jittery in the field. Jilted bowler Simon Jones struggled to contain his anger.

It brought to mind the famous story concerning the great English fast bowler and character Fred Trueman. An errant slips fielder - having let the ball race between his legs for four - apologised to Trueman for not keeping his legs together.

"Not you son, you're mother should've," replied Trueman, in a humour laced with arsenic.

All is not lost for England, not with that bowling attack and particularly the threat that Steve Harmison poses.

It is possible for one bowler to dominate a test series, and in Harmison England have a player capable of doing that.

But yet another team of Australian cricketers is living by the motto that whatever you can do, we can do better.

For those on this side of the world who stayed up, relishing the prospect of a classic Ashes duel, normal transmission resumed far too quickly from Lord's.

* A final note about the first test. It was eerie watching the cricket and knowing - via news channels - that London was experiencing further terror at the hands of bombers. This punter scurried for the sanctuary of Lord's.