CHARLES SALE THE COVERS ARE OFF Civil War at

Lord’s

The last two decades have seen a civil war inside MCC over the future of Lord’s, though the club’s membership have largely been kept in the dark. On the one side, the MCC establishment; on the other, the property developer Charles Rifkind, who bought the rights to develop the railway tunnels under the ground’s Nursery End from under the noses of MCC.

Rifkind’s audacious purchase led to two decades of frustration, as MCC rebu ed his attempts to bring the ‘Home of Cricket’ into the twenty- rst century. It is a saga that saw the cricketing establishment take sides in an increasingly acrimonious con ict, which played out in furious debates behind the closed Grace Gates.

With a cast list that includes a former prime minister, several England Test captains, leaders of nance and industry and committed agitators amongst the MCC membership, The Covers Are O reveals a bitter struggle between the guardians of tradition and a new order intent on change.

“It is a very English scandal which has all the usual English disease elements in. It. Too much pride. Too much prejudice. Too much snobbery. Too much mendacity. Too much down right incompetence. Charles Sale really does tell the story well. Essential reading for MCC members, cricket lovers and those who study the English psyche.”

Paddy Briggs, cricket journalist.