Lillian Thomson
Hall of Fame Member
The Oval joins a small select number of venues that have hosted 100 Test Matches. JBMAC will probably claim to remember all of them. I've witnessed all of them (99.9% on TV) since the early 70's. Some great moments, great innings and a lot of great memories and matches. My favourite memory is oddly enough an England defeat. The Oval pitch in the mid-70's was an absolute featherbed, especially 74-76. Michael Holding's bowling on the final day of the 1976 Test was fast bowling at its best. It was the flattest of flat pitches and although the England batting line-up wasn't the greatest they'd made over 400 in the first innings (admittedly Dennis Amiss made nearly half of them). There was nothing intimidating, just extremely fast and accurate fast bowling. Viv also made 291 which was a great innings, but that seemed a little more inevitable that summer.