Sometimes the venue can make a big contribution to the occasion, writes Ross Dykes.
As convener of the New Zealand selection panel I was given favoured treatment and through the five days of the match we alternated between the MCC's treasurer's box, the MCC's president's box and the English Cricket Board chairman's lounge - all high up in the grandstand and equipped with every possible hospitality service you could dream of.
While it was jacket and tie as a minimum, my wife and I still felt naked as our accents were very colonial and our name tags bare of any titles.
On day one, our son was with us, a gangly 19-year-old, totally unsuited to a tie let alone his old school blazer but prepared to chat with anyone regardless of how many hyphens they had in their names or titles preceding the same.
Despite our very common appearance we were treated royally and while son Nicholas was engaged in conversation with the Archbishop of Canterbury out on the balcony prior to play, I was being given a gentle ''ticking off'' by the treasurer of the MCC for talking to an affable author and knight who turned out to be persona non grata to the Lord's hierarchy, with very good cause as it later turned out. I didn't help my situation by then asking the treasurer who the old chap was that Nicholas was talking to!
Anyway, somewhere between the lobster main and the Roquefort and coffee on day five, Mathew Bell scored the winning runs and New Zealand won the game - the first Kiwi victory at Lord's - and the celebrations began in earnest.
You could have been forgiven for thinking it was actually England that won, such was the genuine delight the MCC hosts showed. They toasted our team, our captain, our country and, of course, our Queen, while we tried to display the sort of antipodean humility that we thought the occasion deserved.
Not for long though, as our generous hosts escorted me over to the players' dressing room and my wife and a couple of players' mums through the hallowed Lord's Longroom. Women weren't really allowed in the Longroom, but on this occasion New Zealanders could go wherever they liked.
The significance of the day came home properly to me when in the dressing room, while players stood out on the balcony waving to the enthusiastic crowd below, I scrolled through the honours board of every international player who had scored a century or taken five wickets at Lord's. The names were in themselves a history of the game and made me aware that this was very much an historic day for New Zealand cricket.
Chris Cairns and Matt Horne would have their names etched on that honours board before the day was out and nine other New Zealand cricketers would have a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It probably wasn't the greatest day in my life but with cricket having been the dominant force in my life, it demonstrated to me that the game of cricket is much more than taking 10 wickets and scoring centuries: it is the dignity, the history, the maturity and the camaraderie that the English have ingrained into the game.
Their genuine joy at New Zealand's success was something I will never forget. I would like to think we are starting to develop a similar maturity and sense of occasion in our cricket down here in the South.
• Ross Dykes is chief executive of Otago Cricket.
- Tell us about your best day. Write to odt.features@odt.co.nz. We ask correspondents not to nominate weddings or births; of course they were the best days.
