Empty seats for England vs Sri Lanka show Lord’s needs a rethink on ticket prices

Second Test, Day 4: England 427 (Root 143, Atkinson 118 | A Fernando 5-102) & 251 (Root 103) beat Sri Lanka 196 (Kamindu 74) & 292 (Chandimal 58, Karunaratne 55, Dhananjaya 50; Atkinson 5-62) by 190 runs

LORD’S — England took an unassailable 2-0 series lead over Sri Lanka in front of a meagre Lord’s crowd that raises serious questions about the pricing of tickets for major Test matches in this country.

The hosts were always going to win this match on the fourth day given Sri Lanka started it on 53 for 2 in pursuit of a world-record target of 483.

In truth, this match was over as a contest as soon as England established a 231 first-innings lead.

Yet they were made to work for the final eight wickets needed on the final day as half-centuries from Dimuth Karunaratne, Dinesh Chandimal and Dhananjaya de Silva held up their victory charge.

Gus Atkinson, who scored a remarkable century from No 8 earlier in the match, took another five-wicket haul on the final day as England completed a 190-run win.

It was the third time in four innings Atkinson’s bowling has seen him added to the Lord’s honours board after his 12 wickets on debut against the West Indies earlier this summer.

His heroics here saw him named man of the match ahead of Joe Root, whose twin hundreds saw him overtake Sir Alastair Cook to become England’s leading century maker in Tests.

Ollie Pope, in charge for this series in place of the injured Ben Stokes, has not had a good Test with the bat.

He has also had a shocking series with umpire reviews, failing with eight from eight over the first two Tests.

“The guys behind the stumps aren’t helping me much, are they?” Pope said.

“It’s been weird. Hopefully I can get one next week.”

Pope can at least take comfort from the fact he has won both matches as stand-in captain.

England, who whitewashed the West Indies 3-0 in July, can now win every Test in a home summer for the first time since 2004 if they complete another clean sweep against Sri Lanka at The Oval later this week.

“I think it would be a pretty cool thing to look back on after a summer of six Tests and having won them all, if we can do it,” Pope said.

“We’ll enjoy this one and then go again at The Oval.”

In all, 66.4 overs were needed to finish the job against Sri Lanka on this final day.

But the empty seats in the stands drew almost as much discussion as the action on the field.

With little jeopardy left in this match and sky-high ticket prices, Lord’s was not even half-full.

The fact the cheapest adult tickets were £95 didn’t help, with many fans choosing to go elsewhere on a glorious late summer’s day rather than pay through the nose for one-sided cricket during a cost of living crisis.

The lack of fans was not a good look for the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the owners of Lord’s, who have a tough job trying to shed perceptions they are elitist at the best of times.

When i approached the MCC, they pointed out that tickets for Under-16s were available for £15 and claimed the cheapest adult tickets available to buy without restricted views had been £80.

But when i looked at the Lord’s website on Sunday morning, those £80 tickets were not available.

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Test cricket remains a stronger draw in England than anywhere else in the world and so ticket prices are also higher.

But for low-key series such as this, surely there needs to be a rethink for late sales?

Lord’s offered entry for £20 for the final day of last year’s Ashes Test but with Test cricket being played more quickly than ever, especially by England’s Bazballers, MCC chief executive Guy Lavender felt moved to admit the club would now look at more dynamic pricing for day four tickets in future years.

“It is difficult to dynamically discount tickets in hindsight when thousands of supporters have applied through our ballot process and paid the full price,” Lavender said.

“Whilst our sales in 2024 have been the best outside an Ashes year, we will be paying particular attention to the structure of fourth-day tickets in our pricing reviews given the way Test cricket is now being played.”

The sparse crowd led to a flat atmosphere on a day when the result was a foregone conclusion.

The fact it went beyond tea was a small victory for the tourists, but they were finally seen off after the second new ball was taken, with Atkinson leading the charge.

The Surrey bowler now has 33 wickets at 18 after five Tests – the joint-second best return by any England bowler after the same number of games.

“He’s obviously smashed it so far in his Test career so credit to him for that,” Pope said.

“I’m sure he’s just going to keep on developing and getting better and better.”