Dead sparrow set to fly from Lord's

Date released: 8 November 2006

A stuffed sparrow, famously killed by a cricket ball at Lord’s 70 years ago, will leave its MCC Museum home tomorrow when it ‘flies’ to an exhibition in the Netherlands.

The sparrow in question was on the receiving end of a ball delivered by Jehangir Khan in the MCC v Cambridge University fixture of 1936. It was subsequently stuffed and mounted on the very ball that killed it. It will be ‘flying’ for the first time in 70 years – from London City Airport, in a specially designed case – to star in “The Grand House Sparrow Exhibition” at the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam. Other items in this exhibition include the “Domino Sparrow”, named as such after it was shot for knocking over 23,000 dominos at a world-record attempt just prior to the event being televised in 11 countries.

Antony Amos , MCC’s Tours & Museum Manager commented:

“The dead sparrow is a very popular attraction in the MCC Museum. Despite its untimely death, it has certainly not gone unnoticed – being seen by over 50,000 visitors to our Museum each year.”

The MCC Museum – which forms part of the Lord’s Tour – is the oldest sporting museum in the world and displays an unrivalled collection of cricketing memorabilia from the 1800s to the present day. Even in the sparrow’s absence (it will be off site for six months), visitors will still be able to enjoy other bird-related artefacts: a Crowe (Martin, former New Zealand batsman), a Robin (Smith, England batsman) and, of course, a Bird (Dickie, former Test Umpire). All three are Honorary Life Members of MCC.

The sparrow is the second high-profile MCC Museum artefact to ‘fly’ away from Lord’s this winter; the much celebrated Ashes Urn is the centrepiece of an Ashes Exhibition – in association with Travelex – that is currently breaking museum attendance records in Australia.

Recent additions to the MCC collection include the helmet worn by Brian Lara throughout his record-breaking innings of 501 not out for Warwickshire versus Durham in 1994, and items from Keith Krump’s world-class collection of cricketing ceramics.