England v West Indies 2024 – Top Edgbaston Hospitality
View 10 photosSir Curtly Ambrose, David Gower, Steve Harmison & Mark Ramprakash
The summer’s test match series, England v West Indies 2024, culminated at Edgbaston with the third and final match of this fascinating and high-scoring series.
Our guests in the hospitality lounge across days one and two were West Indies’ legendary fast bowler Sir Curtly Ambrose, England’s very own devastating paceman, iconic Ashes winner Steve Harmison and England’s classy top order batsman and brilliant character Mark Ramprakash. On day three Steve and Mark were joined by the superb David Gower, one of the most stylish English batsmen, a former national team captain and now a much loved and knowledgeable commentator and TV personality!
On the pitch the England v West Indies match was intriguing as England put on a superb display winning the test match by 10 wickets and taking a 3-0 series lead. While a 10-wicket victory shows a straightforward result, this was a close affair until day 3, when England’s bowlers really showed their cutting edge to bowl the West Indies out for just 175 in their second innings and leave a low total to chase.
Mark Wood in particular made light work of the West Indies tail to take 5-40 and get the wickets you could argue he has deserved for his performances across the series. Notable other England performances include Gus Atkinson, who took his series wicket tally to 22, and the other series debutant, wicketkeeper Jamie Smith whose batting performances show incredible promise for the future.
In the hospitality suite Edgbaston served up an incredible offering of food and drink across the 3 days, delighting guests with fantastic hospitality to go with the cricket on the pitch and the superb guests and cricket chat off it.
Our special guests for England v West Indies had those lucky enough to be in attendance gripped with stories from their playing days as well as giving their thoughts and opinions on the current England and West Indies sides and laying out a few points of interest for the future.
Steve Harmison for example told guests that he expects England to go with four 85mph plus pace bowlers to have a real go at winning back the Ashes in Australia in 18 months’ time. When talking about his career he noted how Brian Lara was the best player he bowled at across his illustrious career.
Sir Curtly Ambrose discussed his old West Indies captain and cricketing legend Sir Viv Richards, eulogising about the brilliant qualities of the man and mentioning the ways in which he got the best out of his team, including a great intensity he had.
David Gower OBE talked about his encounters against some of the great West Indies bowlers from his era and named the late, great Malcolm Marshall as the toughest he came up against in test matches he featured in between the two sides.
Aside from the cricket talk, Mark Ramprakash discussed about his time on Strictly Come Dancing, a hot topic at the moment, and spoke about how incredible intensive the training was and how much tougher it was than he had anticipated beforehand. He also went on to say how winning the series was so special and how much of a buzz he had got from the achievement.
We hope everyone who attended England v West Indies at Edgbaston had a wonderful time and we look forward to welcoming guests old and new to the next England test match lined up at Edgbaston in 2025. With the next series to feature Edgbaston on the fixture list being the summer series where England will be facing the mighty Indian team, a thrilling prospect and one which we would be delighted to have you to join us for!
