Headingley: haven of heroes

The row over venues for England's matches in India, one that generated more heat in Britain for good reasons than it did in the home country, demonstrated if nothing else the extraordinary number of stadia in that vast land that are apparently suitable stages for international cricket. England and Wales could mount some challenge on paper by claiming venues such as Hove and Northampton given their status as hosts of World Cup matches but the truth is that modernising the six older Test grounds and even developing the purpose-built seventh at Chester-le- Street has been a tortuous process.

Lord's and Trent Bridge have done it best, Old Trafford has had the most negative publicity but nowhere has it been more difficult than Headingley, now, at last, the legally owned (if not yet paid for) home of Yorkshire cricket. Only a Yorkshireman could have written, as their competent and committed lawyer president Robin Smith did in his introduction to the late Robert Mills's excellent Field of Dreams: "If there is a sporting venue in the world with a greater claim to fame than Headingley, I am not aware of it."

Lord's? The Oval? The MCG? Eden Gardens? Wimbledon? Wembley? Twickenham? Madison Square Garden? The San Siro? Mention these or others as a rival to the ground that was owned until a few months ago by the Leeds Cricket, Football and Athletic Company and you will be considered as foolish as the southern softy who tried to argue in a Yorkshire hostelry around the turn of the 20th century that WG Grace was worth a place in the best ever England XI.

But Headingley is different, a stage for Tests since 1899 with enhanced drama in the last 30 years as great batsmen have risen to the challenge either of uneven bounce or awkward swing on those many days when clouds billow over the terraced houses towards the black spire of St Michael's Church. Like Yorkshire folk generally, the ground has character and a certain quirkiness. Fierce stewards, for example, make pedestrians walk, on pain of death, all the way round the touchline of the football field as they usher heavy Bentleys and BMWs on to the middle of the pitch.

Even with recent modernisations to its eastern and western sides, Headingley has yet to establish anything like the unity of outward appearance that it revealed in inner spirit when Yorkshire members voted by a huge majority last Christmas Eve to buy the ground for an initial £9 million, backed by loans from the club's chairman, Colin Graves, Leeds City Council, HSBC and Sport England.

The alternative (Lancashire take note) was not attractive. The finances of any newly developed ground in Yorkshire would no doubt have been just as complex. There would have been no certainty of even long-term gain from the scheme to move to Wakefield and so much would have been lost. There are history, tradition and atmosphere to consider as well as the number of seats and hospitality boxes.

Headingley is the ground where Bradman twice scored 300 in a Test match, where his 1948 side became the first in Test history to get more than 400 in the fourth innings to win a game, where Malcolm Marshall bowled the West Indies to victory with an arm in plaster in 1984 and Imran Khan had one of his finest bowling performances three years later. Ian Botham transformed England's lost cause in 1981 and Graham Gooch gave arguably the greatest demonstration of batting against high-class fast bowling ever seen when he carried his bat for 154 not out against West Indies in 1991.

Those controversial dry pitches have produced some of the most exciting games ever played and if, arguably, the last Test to be won there by a finger spinner was when Derek Underwood took 10 wickets against Australia in 1972, too little assistance for spinners is a failing of most grounds in England since the pitches were fully covered. Steve Waugh's glorious maiden Test century in 1989 and totals in excess of 600 by Australia and India since prove that Headingley is not just predictable for its unpredictability. Cricketers everywhere should rejoice that it will stage international cricket in England at least until 2019.