The countdown begins with the first batch of milestones which can be viewed below. This will build up to the announcement of the first XI, starting on 20 February and ending on 2 March, when the number one greatest moment is revealed.
Showing his support for the project, eminent cricket broadcaster and MCC Committee Member Mark Nicholas has voiced the launch video, which encapsulates the decorated history of the Ground.
Nicholas said of the project: “From humble beginnings more than two hundred years ago, Lord’s has become the most prestigious and widely admired cricket Ground in the world.
"Players come here in the hope of creating a legacy"
"Players come here in the hope of creating a legacy that lives on for future generations to both reflect upon and enjoy. And that is exactly the motive behind this project - the creation of a legacy that immortalises the achievements at the Home of Cricket of those who have gone before.
“I’m certain that the Father Time Wall will be yet another good reason for cricket lovers to visit the ground and immerse themselves in the rich history of the house that Thomas Lord built and the game of bat and ball that lives so strongly in our hearts.”
The Lord’s Father Time Wall will be installed in May 2021.
The wall will not only showcase the 100 Greatest Milestones ever to take place at the hallowed Home of Cricket, but also give supporters around the world the chance to buy a personalised plaque to commemorate their own significant moments and memories at Lord’s.
The sale of the plaques is helping to fund the milestones project, as well as 5% of the proceeds of the sale going to the MCC Foundation to support its life-enhancing projects within cricket, both at home and abroad.
Plaques are on sale now and are available for purchase here with prices starting from £200.
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1814: MCC beat Hertfordshire in the first match at Lord’s.
1936: A ball strikes a sparrow which is later stuffed and displayed in the MCC Museum
1987: Four players make centuries in MCC's bicentenary Test
1993: The first of Andrew Festing's Conversation Piece paintings is unveiled
1993: The MCC Foundation is established
1998: MCC votes to admit women as Members
1999: The first women are awarded Honorary Life Membership of MCC
1999: MCC Women play their first match
2001: Richie Benaud delivers the first MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture
2004: Rachael Heyhoe Flint becomes the first woman to serve on MCC Committee
2013: MCC is granted a Royal Charter
2014: Sachin Tendulkar captains MCC to victory in the bicentenary of Lord's match
1914: Lord's is used by the War Office for the accommodation of troops
1953: HRH The Duke of Edinburgh opens the Imperial Memorial Gallery
1968: The new Tavern Stand is completed
1977: First Indoor School at Lord's officially opened
1987: The new Mound Stand is completed
1998: The new Grand Stand is completed
1998: The Women's Ashes are created in a ceremony in the Harris Garden
1999: The new Media Centre is completed
2012: Lord's hosts the Olympic Archery tournament
2017: The New Warner Stand is opened by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh
2021: The new Compton and Edrich Stands are completed
1979: Viv Richards is named Man of the Match in the World Cup Final
1983: India win the World Cup Final
1993: England beat New Zealand in the Women's World Cup Final
2002: India beat England in a dramatic NatWest Series Final
2009: Pakistan and England win the Men’s/Women's T20 World Cup Final on the same day.
2017: Anya Shrubsole takes match-winning 6-46 in Women's World Cup Final
2019: England's Ben Stokes is Man of the Match in the Men's World Cup Final
1864: W.G. Grace plays at Lord's for the first time
1947: Denis Compton and Bill Edrich put on 370 for England against South Africa
1963: Colin Cowdrey bats with a broken arm for England against West Indies
1964: Fred Trueman takes his fifth international five-wicket haul at Lord's
1974: Derek Underwood takes match figures of 13-71 for England
1974: England beat India by the largest margin in a Lord's Test
1976: The first Women's One-Day International is held at Lord's
1978: Ian Botham scores 108 and takes 8-34 for England against Pakistan
2000: England beat West Indies in the 100th Lord's Test
2006: Claire Taylor scores 156 not out for England against India
2010: Jonathan Trott and Stuart Broad put on 332 for England against Pakistan
2015: England beat New Zealand in a Test that included 1,610 runs
2018: Alastair Cook plays his 26th Lord's Test
1886: The Parsees are the first team from India to play at Lord's
1909: The Imperial Cricket Conference is founded at Lord's
1928: Learie Constantine scores 103 and takes 7-57 for West Indies against Middlesex
1939: George Headley scores a century in both innings for West Indies
1950: West Indies win a Lord's Test for the first time
1952: Vinoo Mankad scores 184 and takes 5-196 for India against England
1970: Garry Sobers scores 183 and takes 6-21 for Rest of the World XI
1982: Pakistan beat England to claim their first Lord's Test victory
1984: Gordon Greenidge scores 214* to help West Indies beat England
1986: Richard Hadlee takes a third five-wicket haul in consecutive Lord's Tests
1987: Gordon Greenidge's century for MCC earns him a place on the home Honours Boards
1994: South Africa beat England in their first Lord's Test for 29 years
1998: Sachin Tendulkar scores 125 in the Princess of Wales memorial match
1999: Neil Johnson scores 132 not out for Zimbabwe against Australia
2003: Graeme Smith scores 259 for South Africa against England
2009: Netherlands defeat England in the Men's T20 World Cup
2010: Tamim Iqbal scores 103 for Bangladesh against England
2014: Kumar Sangakkara scores Test and ODI centuries at Lord's within a fortnight
2016: Pakistan's Misbah-ul-Haq scores a maiden Lord's century aged 42
2019: Tim Murtagh takes 5-13 for Ireland against England
1868: Aboriginal Cricketers are the first team from Australia to play at Lord's
1878: The Australians bowl out MCC twice in one day
1884: England beat Australia in the first Lord's Test
1930: Donald Bradman scores 254 for Australia against England
1934: Hedley Verity takes 14 wickets in a day for England against Australia
1938: Wally Hammond scores 240 for England against Australia
1945: Keith Miller scores two centuries in the 'Victory Tests'
1953: Trevor Bailey and Willie Watson salvage a draw for England against Australia
1972: Australia beat England in the first Men's ODI held at Lord's
1972: Bob Massie takes match figures of 16-137 for Australia
1997: Glenn McGrath takes 8-38 for Australia against England
2005: Australia's Glenn McGrath takes his 500th Test wicket
2009: England win their first Lord's Test against Australia in 75 years
1805: The first Eton v. Harrow match takes place at Lord's
1820: William Ward scores the first double-century in first-class cricket
1827: The first Oxford v. Cambridge match takes place at Lord's
1877: Middlesex County Cricket Club make Lord's their home ground
1899: Albert Trott hits a cricket ball over the Pavilion
1929: Middlesex's Gubby Allen takes all ten wickets in an innings
1937: Patsy Hendren appears in a first-class match at Lord's for the last time
1963: The first Gillette Cup Final is held at Lord's
1965: Geoffrey Boycott's 146 helps Yorkshire win the Gillette Cup
1972: Troon win the first Village Cup Final
1980: Middlesex win the County Championship and Gillette Cup double
1996: Dickie Bird umpires his fifteenth and final Lord's Test
2004: Surrey beat Middlesex in the first T20 match at Lord's
Even among MCC’s most senior Members, few can claim to have seen more than 100 Test Matches at Lord’s. But one familiar face on the Ground has done just that.
For almost a century Father Time has been one of the most recognisable symbols of Lord’s. Rarely has a gift become so treasured, such an intrinsic part of the recipient’s property.
The final was one of only two matches hosted by Lord’s during the tournament. It was contested between the two favourites, Australia and the West Indies.
Despite losing the toss, West Indies made a total of 291 in 60 overs, their captain Clive Lloyd scoring 102 off just 85 balls. Chasing West Indies’ total, Australia had five men run out, and Keith Boyce took 4 wickets, as West Indies won the inaugural Prudential World Cup by 17 runs.
The Prudential World Cup can be seen on display in the MCC Museum.
When the great cricketer WG Grace died in 1915 it was inevitable that MCC would wish to commemorate his remarkable life and long association with the Club. Grace’s rise to prominence fifty years earlier had ushered in cricket’s golden age and helped to cement Lord’s position as the game’s spiritual and administrative home
The final design was masterly with the central pillar inscriped with “To the Memory of William Gilbert Grace / The Great Cricketer 1848 – 1915 / These gates were erected by the MCC and other friends and admirers”.
Graham Gooch turned 37 in the summer of 1990, but the following 12 months proved to be something of a rebirth for him as an international batsman, with seven hundreds and eleven fifties from just sixteen Tests.
His magnificent innings in the first Test against India at the start of August was remarkable not only as a stand-alone knock – it remains the highest individual score at Lord’s - but he also scored 123 in the second innings of that game, making a record aggregate score in Test Matches of 456.
Few bowlers have had as much success at Lord’s as James Anderson. In 23 Test Matches at the Ground he has bowled 5,439 balls and taken 103 wickets at 23.89, making him the leading Test wicket-taker at the Home of Cricket.
Anderson claimed his 500th Test wicket when he bowled Kraigg Braithwaite, the first of his wickets in that spell of 7-42 against West Indies, also his best bowling spell in Tests. He was only the third fast bowler to reach the landmark after Courtney Walsh and Glenn McGrath.
The Lord’s Pavilion was designed by architect Thomas Verity and built over the winter of 1889-90 at a cost of £21,000.
Verity’s Pavilion is the third to stand on the site and is the oldest building at Lord’s. Its predecessors were met with mixed fates. The first Pavilion burned down in 1825 and its successor, was taken down in 1889.
Verity’s Pavilion is a much grander affair. At its heart lies the famous Long Room, 93ft in length, which offers a magnificent view of the playing area and through which players pass as they make their way to and from the pitch, making it the most famous walk in cricket.
The idea of the Ashes originated with England’s first defeat by Australia on English soil, at the Oval in 1882. England were set just 85 to win, but the bowling of ‘The Demon’ Fred Spofforth saw them dismissed for just 77.
The defeat was seen as such a national calamity that three days later a mock obituary appeared in the Sporting Times, declaring the death of English cricket and that the body would be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.
It is unclear where the Urn came from, but England captain Hon. Ivo Bligh and his wife Florence Rose Morphy, held it as a cherished reminder of their romance until after Ivo’s death in 1927, when Florence presented it to MCC. At its heart therefore, the story of the Ashes Urn is a love story; a story that should unite two nations, not divide them.
The 2017 ICC Women’s World Cup was the eleventh time a women’s championship had been held, but the 2017 tournament was a very different affair from the earliest ones.
The previous tournament to be held in England, in 1993, had been a quiet affair. The final at Lord’s, won by England, had been played out before largely empty stands. But the buzz around the 2017 tournament was huge, and as spectators flocked to the venues in unprecedented numbers, viewers on television and the internet made it a truly global event.
England won the game by nine runs to secure their fourth World Cup title, with Anya Shrubsole named player of the match after taking 6/46..
The first generally accepted code of Laws for cricket was issued in 1744. Prior to that, rules were generally agreed by the participants in advance of a given match, Neither these, nor the later Laws, offered any guidance on how to play the game – this was considered to be generally understood – instead they provided agreement on likely areas of dispute.
When the new Marylebone Club was founded it was natural for MCC to issue a new code of Laws. Lord’s would be the legislative and administrative centre of cricket for the next two centuries. MCC remains custodian of the Laws of Cricket to this day.
It was not a final of blazing boundaries, but of Test Match tension and grit. Runs were hard to come by against tight bowling and England lost four wickets for 86 chasing down New Zealand’s modest total of 241. Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler put on 110, but while Stokes kept going, wickets kept falling at the other end. For the first time ever a World Cup Final had ended in a tie.
Only it hadn’t ended. Buttler came back out to join an exhausted Stokes for the Super Over. The pair smashed 15 off Trent Boult. Surely enough? But Jofra Archer’s opening delivery was called wide, then Jimmy Neesham smashed a six and suddenly it was two to win off the last ball again. It was a comfortable single out to deep midwicket, but two? Jason Roy’s throw arrowed in from the deep. Buttler took the ball in front of the stumps and stretched out his left glove to break the wicket as Guptill dived in desperately short. It was another tie, England claiming the trophy by virtue of having hit more boundaries. Their long wait was over, sealed by a moment no cricket fan will ever forget.
By 1787 the gentlemen of the White Conduit Club were in search of a new home. The club had been a social and sporting success, but their cricket ground, White Conduit Fields in Islington, was near one of the busy turnpikes leading north out of London - easy to get to but a little too close to the ‘hoi polloi’ for the gentlemen’s comfort. Greater privacy and seclusion were called for, as was the right man to get it.
Thomas Lord had been born in Thirsk, Yorkshire and had come to London to rebuild the family fortune. A gifted cricketer, he was employed as a bowler and ground attendant at White Conduit Fields. But the members had noticed his entrepreneurial spirit, and two of them, the Earl of Winchilsea and the Duke of Richmond, guaranteed him against all losses if he would go out and find a new ground for them.
Lord found his patch at Dorset Fields – now Dorset Square, just north of Oxford Street – in the parish of St Marylebone. He laid out a wicket, put up a fence and charged sixpence admission. Ever a man with an eye for the main chance, he made sure that entry to the ground (and exit) could only be made through his wine shop.
On 31 May 1787 the first match took place at Lord’s new ground with Middlesex beating Essex by 93 runs – a match played for 200 guineas. Lord himself opened the innings for Middlesex, scoring one and 36. For Thomas Lord, fortune and immortality beckoned. And so the Marylebone Cricket Club was born.