THE best thing to be said about the Oval is that it hosts Test cricket. The worst is a multiple dead heat embracing all that is wrong with an antiquated facility in Central London. So let’s be clear about one thing: only go there if cricket is your thing. If it is not, go anywhere else.

The trouble is, of course, that many of us find ourselves somewhere in between. True fans have an empathy with most sports and I am no different. While cricket is not my thing, I can’t help but want to know a little more about it. And so to the Oval for a first, live taste of the stuff.

Getting a ticket was easy: stroll along to turnstile 11, by the Hobbs Gate, and you could, if you’re lucky, stumble across a woman waving a tickets-for-sale placard, as I did on Thursday. She’d bought them for her children in February — only to find they were due back at school.

Beside her, a man was selling one at face value. I handed over £40 for a £38 ticket and, overcome by the spontaneity of our meeting, bode him to keep the change. “All quite legal,” he assured me under the watchful eye of a steward, who appeared to concur by saying nothing. Who knows? It may work for you today and tomorrow.

After many fruitless hours attempting to buy a ticket through official channels, this came as blessed relief. And the sheer simplicity of it must have inclined me towards generosity for the rest of the day. After a trying experience, I departed eight hours later in good spirits; even inclined to return.

Quite why is hard to reconcile, for the Oval is a dispiriting place. The grandeur of its pavilion is entirely at odds with the rest of it. It is a relic from a bygone era, an age when people were less inclined to complain, as one would certainly do now over much at the ground.

Two stands topped with gaudy hospitality suites flank the pavilion, after which the skylines fall away starkly into shallow banks of seating. It is as if a child had assembled a Lego model before suddenly abandoning it. Some might say it has its own particular charm, but then, some will find charm in the smell of a skunk.

There were no skunks that I saw, but plenty of smells. The catering, frankly, was a disgrace matched only by the willingness of people to indulge it. Those inclined to dispute that tolerance is a British virtue should have seen them lining up for their overcooked burgers and chips — happily parting with £4.60, no less, for the pleasure.

Exorbitant catering is common enough but the fare need not be so poor. It’s no wonder that many prefer to bring their own picnics to a place that would comfortably pass for a tarmaced suburban beer garden — resplendent with flaky tarmac and no garden. But this serves to exacerbate another problem: the chronic shortage of space.

The walkway around the inside perimeter of the ground is too narrow to cope with the intervals, when lengthy queues form for everything from buying drink to answering the call of nature. Much could be done to improve the gridlock by the plentiful stewards, who seem far more concerned with chatting to each other. It was distressing to see the wheelchair-bound struggling against such rampant disorganisation.

But the picnicking theme is what really highlights the acute shortage of space. All manner of goodie-bags are stowed under the feet as people sit in seats already too close together for comfort. From hand to gullet, the flow of food and drink is constant. “Sorry, sorry,” you keep repeating as you nudge the person to your left in trying to make room for the one to your right to raise his pint of beer. Spillage is inevitable and frequent.

It was not all bad. Cricket-lovers abounded, which is always reassuring, and the level of kinship was far closer than at most sporting events. It was also refreshing to see fans in garb: if the Vikings and Crusaders alluded to Britain’s history, it was hard to discern where those dressed as sumo wrestlers entered the mix. And Norman Tebbit would doubtless have noted those of Asian extraction in England shirts — not to mention the AngloSaxon in a top bearing the name of Kabir.

A potentially jovial atmosphere was diluted somewhat by the prowess of the South Africa batsmen, who reaped in the sunshine without abuse from a crowd well fuelled by the end. On the contrary, it was time for a Mexican wave; the day would end as it had begun, with an expression of joy. As each section rose and cheered, acres of shredded newspaper were thrown skywards to create an effect more in keeping with a carnival in the impoverished backstreets of Rio de Janeiro. Which, with a little imagination, is where we all might easily have been.