Stephen Brenkley: The man planning a bright future for a glorious past

There have been some tough acts to follow in cricket. Taking over at No 3 from Don Bradman in the Australia batting order must have been pretty daunting (although, as it happens, Keith Miller, Lindsay Hassett and Neil Harvey all did well enough).

Adam Chadwick has followed Stephen Green as curator of the MCC Cricket Museum at Lord's. Now cricket- museum curating might be a small sort of field, but Green was, if you like, the Bradman of it.

He painstakingly developed and catalogued a terrific collection over more than 30 years in the job. By his retirement last year he not only had a worldwide reputation, but also wrote a book on Lord's that will doubtless come to be seen as a definitive work.

When Green departed, Chadwick took over. What happened next has not yet fully transpired - he has only been in situ six months - but Chadwick appears to be performing the difficult balance of being highly respectful of the past while being intent on changing things for the better in the future.

"I don't think my job as curator is the same as Diana Rait Kerr's [the first curator, for a mere 25 years] or Stephen's," he said. "They were there to build and add to the collection. My larger task is to try to galvanise it and enliven it."

A cricket bat used by W G Grace, for instance, is simply a cricket bat. Seen one bat used by the Doctor and you have probably seen 'em all, but Chadwick would like to put the bats and other memorabilia into some sort of context. He wants to make greater use of audio and video, and is in contact with the BBC about using their sound archive.

One shortcoming of the Lord's collection is precisely that: it is the Lord's collection and never moves anywhere else. Chadwick has it in his mind to loan parts of it to provincial museums. It is, of course, appropriate for a cricket-museum curator, that he has some sort of cricket history in his family. Chadwick's great grandfather, a chap named Warman, bowled Grace twice in the same match when he was playing for London County. The Eastern Daily Press headline said: "Three cheers for Warman who has doctored Grace." Sounds like a jolly good museum exhibit.

Roof with a view

In his long-term dreams, Chadwick would like to house the MCC collection in a building specially constructed for the purpose, rather than a former real tennis court, which is not an ideal setting for rare and valuable sporting artefacts.

This may happen, but only when the 33-year-old classics graduate is a little older. The MCC will be somewhat strapped for cash for a while, having decided to spend £8.2m on refurbishing the pavilion. Work will start in August and is due to finish in March next year. It will take three years before the MCC have rid themselves of debt, which will reach £2.1m.

The most obvious change to non-members of the MCC (ie most of us) will be to the roof terrace and turrets. The new hardwood-decked terrace will offer, as the members' brochure says, "a wonderful new perspective of play", and it should be particularly interesting to see the members rushing for cover if somebody eventually emulates the feat of A E Trott in 1899 and hits a ball over the pavilion roof.

Vision but no sound

As for the view at the Nursery End, in the spaceship that doubles as a media centre it must be the best in cricket. But that is as far as it goes in the £4m edifice, since it is hermetically sealed and has none whatever of the atmosphere generated in the ground. Thus when Chris Cairns played his electrifying innings of 82 in 47 balls on Friday morning the paid observers might as well have been watching Mark Richardson (93 in 266 balls on Thursday). Critical spectators often suggest that the press must be at another game, and at Lord's they are.

March of the left

Andrew Strauss's handsome innings of 112 made him the 36th left-handed batsman to score a hundred on Test debut, the 12th in the first innings and the second at Lord's since Sourav Ganguly in 1996. But he and Marcus Trescothick failed by 18 to record the highest opening partnership for England by a left-handed pair. In January 1962, Bob Barber and Geoff Pullar, then both of Lancashire, put on 198 against Pakistan in Dhaka.

The In and Out club

Darrell Hair's incorrect decision to send Mark Richardson packing on Thursday night, seven short of a hundred and an eternal place on the dressing-room honours board, brought to mind an International Cricket Council briefing at Lord's three days earlier. Dave Richardson, their cricket general manager, said that between 91 and 92 per cent of umpiring decisions were now right, and the aim was to get the total up to 96 per cent. Tell that to the other Richardson.