OUTSIDE St John’s Wood Tube station, touts were thicker underfoot than a fluffy carpet. Even 90 minutes before the start of play, and with rain in the air, the combination of Lord’s and Twenty20 cricket was proving the hottest ticket in town. Nothing in London’s theatreland could compete.

Maybe the prospect of being part of the first game of its kind at the ground enticed 21,000 people to buy tickets in advance. Curiosity, too, may explain the rush. But, to judge from the absence of fancy dress, banners or flags, and the relatively empty bars during play, spectators came to watch the cricket rather than indulge in frippery.

MCC had done its bit. “What’s the difference between Lord’s and the moon?” was the question posed on the front of a T-shirt in the club shop. “There’s no atmosphere on the moon,” the answer on the back read. A cynic might suggest they should be withdrawn when the county championship resumes.

Stands contained a number of City slickers in their sharp suits, while tweed mingled alongside egg-and-bacon ties in the Pimm’s tent. A few boys were in replica England shirts and one lad was wearing his baseball cap backwards. That was as rebellious as it got.

Newcomers could be spotted as easily as, well, the moon in the night. A well-dressed woman in the Edrich Stand pointed to the electronic scoreboard and asked her partner whether it was the sightscreen. One child was disappointed that Freddie Flintoff was not playing.

The umpires emerged just before 5.30 to a snatch of the 10cc song, Dreadlock Holiday, that included the line, “I don’t like cricket”. Then came something from MC Hammer, or MCC Hammer as he must now be known. Jingles, though, are a serious matter. Residents in St John’s Wood complained about the noise after a performance by Jools Holland during the one-day series against West Indies in 2000, and MCC ha s been working to placate them since.

Last night it had an environmental team monitoring sound levels. Recording devices were placed around the ground, including Wellington Hospital and the garden of Roger Knight, the MCC chief executive. The results will be discussed at a meeting of stakeholders on August 12. “It is a learning experience for us,” Knight said. “We could not get the licence we needed to stage the final last year or this because of concerns about the noise, and we want to show we can keep the volume at a reasonable level. It makes sense for us to host the final because Lord’s is the biggest ground and easily accessible.”

As a contest, the match hardly mattered. Surrey were assured of their place in the last eight and Middlesex were out. Never shy to promote themselves, Surrey even started to sell tickets for the quarter-final next week, assuming that they would finish top of the group with its reward of a home tie.

Indications suggested that the total crowd — including MCC and Middlesex members — would exceed the 25,450 who saw day two of the championship match between these counties in 1953. Denis Compton scored a hundred on that occasion; last night, his 20-year-old grandson, Nick, was in the Middlesex team.

As the showers cleared and the sun emerged, there was a sense of wellbeing. Lord’s was founded 190 years ago, but another line was added to its history last night. The first Twenty20 match at Headquarters will not be the last.

SHOW-STOPPER: Brutal hitting by Adam Hollioake

SHOW-DOWNER: London Underground ensured that spectators arrived in a sweat and a huff

SHOW-BUSINESS: Who needs it? There’s no business like cricket