Lord's Cricket Ground, generally known as Lord's, is

a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its

founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC)
and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and
Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the European Cricket Council (ECC) and,
until August 2005, the International Cricket Council (ICC). Lord's is
widely referred to as the "Home of Cricket"[1]and is home to the world's
oldest sporting museum.[2]
Lord's today is not on its original site, being the third of three grounds
that Lord established between 1787 and 1814. His first ground, now
referred to as Lord's Old Ground, was where Dorset Square now stands.
His second ground, Lord's Middle Ground, was used from 1811 to 1813
before being abandoned to make way for the construction through its
outfield of the Regent's Canal. The present Lord's ground is about 250
yards (230 m) north-west of the site of the Middle Ground. The ground
can hold 28,000 spectators. Proposals are being developed to increase
capacity and amenity.[3] As of December 2013, it was proposed to
redevelop the ground at a cost of around 200 million over a 14-year
period.[4]
The current ground celebrated its two hundredth anniversary in 2014. To
mark the occasion, on 5 July a Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) XI
captained by Sachin Tendulkar played a Rest of the World XI led
by Shane Warne in a 50 overs match.[5]

1. Lord's Cricket Ground, established in 1814, is currently located at St

John's Wood in London. The 'home of cricket' is owned by the world's
biggest cricket brand, the Marylebone Cricket Club, which also owns the

copyright to the Laws of Cricket. It is the MCC which makes changes to,
or updates the rules of cricket.
2. As well as being the 'home to cricket', Lord's is also the home ground
to the England and Wales Cricket Board, the Middlesex Country Cricket
Club, the European Cricket Club and up until 2005, the International
Cricket Council whose official quarters have since moved to Dubai in the
United Arab Emirates. The move came after a request to the British
Government to make an exception for the ICC to not pay corporation tax
was denied.

The ICC (Getty)

3. The team dressing rooms are adorned with honour boards which mark
every century made in a Test match on the grounds, and all instances of
a bowler taking five wickets in a Test innings, and 10 wickets in a Test
match. Names up there include greats like...
4. Don Bradman who scored an epic 254 runs here in 1930, a ground
record which held for 60 years until England's Graham Gooch hit a
monster 333 runs against India in 1990. Glen McGrath also holds the
record for most wickets(26) captured on the ground by a nonEnglishman.

Don Bradman at the crease at Lord's in 1934. (Getty)

5. In terms of play, Lord's is most famous for having a sloping outfield.
The south-west side of the ground stands almost two and a half metres
lower than the north-west side, causing considerable deviation to the ball
when bowling.
The outfield was notorious for regularly becoming too waterlogged to
play on, and over the off-season of 2002/2003, administration expended
2 million to relay the entire outfield. This cost was almost immediately
made back though with a reduced need to make out ticket refunds in
wet-weather matches.

The Pavillion at Lord's. (Getty)

6. The first test match played at Lord's was between England and
Australia in 1884, where the home side beat the Aussies by an innings
and five runs. Australia's first test win at the grounds was in 1888.
7. Australia held a winning streak against England at Lord's from 1934 till
2009, when the local lads finally triumphed in the second match of the
2009 Ashes Series.

The Australian Ashes side. (Getty)

8. Located on Lord's grounds is also the world's oldest sporting museum
- the MCC Museum. It contains the most celebrated collection of
cricketing memoribilia including The Ashes which reside there
permanently. A stuffed sparrow is also on display; memoralised as the
unlucky 'bowled out' victim of a deadly beamer delivery from Jahangir
Khan of Cambridge University during a match in 1936.
9. While Lord's is almost exclusively a cricketing venue, it also houses a
full-length tennis court and during World War I, featured a charity
baseball match between an American and Canaditan team. The Archery
event of the 2012 Summer Olympics was also held on the hallowed
ground. The archers stood in front of the Pavilion, at the Allen Stand end
with their targets lined up in front of the Grand Stand.

Lord's was the venue for the Archery competition at the 2012 London
Olympics. (Getty)
10. The longest running cricket fixture at Lord's (an older ground, not the
current ground) is the annual match between Eton College and Harrow
School. This great sporting schoolboy rivalry started in 1805.

Eton boys play cricket. (Getty)