His impression of the Friday was that the plethora of English medium-pacers were boring and that their similar speed of delivery could not possibly confuse a batsman of true quality. He said that Dominic Cork had entertained him because of his animation - my friend was not aware that Cork had been black-balled for a year having assumed that his omission was due to injury - and because he appeared to take wickets with his personality as much as with the moving ball.
He could not understand why one or two of England's fast bowlers were not faster and why the slow bowler, Robert Croft, was not slower. He was quite infuriated that the England wicketkeeper, who was, after all, he said, the captain, so presumably he knew something of deception in tactics, did not stand up to the stumps for Mark Ealham's ``gentle'' bowling.
I defended the England bowlers, as one tends to when one's own opinion is challenged, and he thought I was rather precious about their ordinariness, which I argued against, so he decided I must be going blind. Then, blow me down, he rang in the middle of the week to ask if I had read Ted Dexter's column that morning in these pages.
Well I had, and Ted was right as, contrary to his public misrepresentation, he mostly is. The point of the call was that Dexter wrote about England's lack of bowling variety and went on to urge the captain to take more of the initiative. Dexter had followed the bowling on the speedometer even more closely than many of the fascinated crowd and noted that South Africa's fastest bowler, Allan Donald, was in the early 90s mph and the slowest, Paul Adams, at 40 mph. England's fastest were middle 80s - Dean Headley bowling to Donald by the way but not to the top order - and slowest was Croft at 50 mph. Therefore England's attack was neither balanced nor threatening and, my mate added triumphantly, none of them was even a left-armer! Game, set and match then to the objective view and food for thought for the selectors who at least have Gough back on the pace front and Giles to hint at a little variety.
People were quite taken with the speedo, which incidentally many of the pundits pooh-poohed. How can Jacques Kallis bowl at all but Shaun Pollock's pace and only a few mph slower than Donald? ``We've faced them,'' mumble the players. ``We know Donald is miles quicker.'' Well, clearly a difference of 10 mph delivered over 20 yards considerably reduces the time the batsman has to play.
In a net practice during the middle 70s, Jeff Thomson was once timed at 99 mph and that without the adrenalin or rhythm of a concentrated spell in a Test match. So if you thought Donald was something, imagine Tommo nipping one back and thudding into your inside thigh . . . never mind the target a couple of inches nearer.
HOW splendid Lord's looked during the Test match. Can the grand old place have ever looked so radiant, so full of sparkle? The new Grandstand, which cost a cool £13 million so ought to have looked good, truly did. It is different in style from the Mound Stand but nevertheless blends into the necessary aesthetic look and traditional feel of a cricket ground rather than a sporting stadium.
The seating for 6,000 is set into a steep gradient rather than set shallow and back, so the viewer feels on top of the play which helps appreciation of the urgency and atmosphere in the middle. Why, even the 24 box-holders seemed happy in their light and airy private enclaves.
The main talking point, though, other than the fiercely debated issue of women, was the space module above the Compton and Edrich Stands at the Nursery end, which is to be the new NatWest media centre. Spectators thought it bigger than they expected and even more futuristic than they imagined. I loved it and believe it will make Lord's even more unusual and special. It is the first all aluminium building in the world and the 'Pod' needs only its mezzanine floor, internal fittings and tinted glass front before it is all but complete.
What with a good pitch protected by the amazing hover-cover, four built-in third-umpire cameras, two electronic scoreboards and soon, quite probably, its own replay screen, Lord's can hardly be accused of stuffiness or of standing still.
It is not only the finest cricket ground in the world but the most modern and the most glamorous too and if England came out of the second Test badly, the MCC, for once indisputably, came out of it smelling of roses. Now for women and the sooner the better.