Dom Joly: All singing, all dancing but all rubbish

Weird World of Sport: The match started with possibly the very worst over I've seen in international cricket

(PA)

I've been watching quite a bit of Twenty20 on the telly recently (in between Big Brother and Newsnight – the perfect balance). It looked like a lot of fun although nothing like the five-day stuff that I love so much. So I decided to go have a look for myself. Someone offered me two debenture seats for a double dose of international Twenty20 and off I went. I took my usual companion, Harry. He and I first met at the age of nine when we represented our respective schools at "throwing the cricket ball". I presume we did this because they wouldn't trust us with javelins at that age. For the record, I beat him on the day with a winning throw of 55 metres and 33 centimetres. How curious the things we remember...

So we arrive at Lord's and the place is jammed with Indians draped in their flag and chanting in football hooligan fashion "I'm Indian till I die..." Their team wasn't playing until the second match but they'd come to boo Pakistan who were playing in the first. The atmosphere was extraordinary, very different from usual. As we took our seats high in the Upper Mound Stand a very plummy voice was reminding us not to run onto the pitch or we would be prosecuted and fined £1,000. This was, the voice continued, for our safety. Then things got very different. "And now," the plummy voice said uncertainly, "I'll hand you over to KG, our DJ." The sound of Eminem boomed across Lord's – it was a bit like your grandfather suddenly announcing that he was throwing an illegal rave this weekend – "if you want to check it out..."

The match started with possibly the very worst over I've ever seen in international cricket – three wides, two no-balls and 18 hit off the over. At the end the forlorn Pakistani bowler slunked down to the boundary below us to face a torrent of abuse from the Indian and Sri Lankan supporters. I pitied the poor Sri Lankans in their horrible yellow and sky blue pyjamas. They looked like the sort of rubbish holiday reps that greet your stag party off the plane in Gran Canaria. I tried to moan to Harry about the absence of cricket whites but he was more interested in the dancers.

Every time a boundary was struck, three Fame School refugees got up onto a blue box and did a terrible dance. They looked a bit like that awful brother and sister off X Factor, Same Difference, except this lot were even worse, if that's possible. I looked around the ground and noticed that there were four of these blue boxes, one in each corner. Someone, somewhere is paying 12 of the worst dancers in the world for this nonsense. I pointed this out to Harry but he was too busy admiring an orange blonde in a fright wig shaking her booty to answer. Maybe they do know their target audience.

The crowd were really into it – well, most of them. To our right was a stand absolutely rammed with Indian supporters all jumping up and down and continually starting Mexican waves that petered out when they reached the MCC pavilion. It's a time-honoured ritual – the whole stadium boos the stuck-up, orange and yellow-tied killjoys and then the whole pantomime starts up again.

Whatever cricket match you go to, it is the law that there should be a ragingly drunk Australian standing in the middle of the crowd screaming unintelligible commands and abuse at everybody. I spotted our designated yellow drunk about 20 rows to my right. By the fifth over he was blotto – throwing things and shouting at everybody with a very red face. By the 10th he was carried out by officials to the cheers of everyone near him.

We hadn't booked lunch so we just joined a queue to some buffet put on by a huge financial institution. Nobody questioned us and we were wined and dined as though nobody had ever heard of the credit crunch. Suitably sated, we returned to our seats for the second game. Harry spent ages trying to spot the booth where sits the man whose job it is to scream "Yahoo" when there is a change of bowlers . I eventually persuaded him that it was actually a recording but he is still a little suspicious. I actually wouldn't mind that job – if it's going, then get in touch...

Left in the back of the net by too much speed

Popped round to a friend's house who had a bowling machine and his own cricket net – the best fun a man can have legally in a garden. I faced a 95mph ball and will never mock international batsmen again...