It is just before 2pm on day one of the first Test between England and New Zealand at Lord’s, and disaster has struck.After a bout of inclement weather earlier in the day, the fences around the Veuve Clicquot champagne garden at the Nursery End of the ground have fallen over. The area is thus out of action. A series of white and yellow tables and chairs that would usually be occupied by people theoretically there to watch some cricket, sit glumly empty.Not just anyone can use this exclusive enclosure. You have to buy some champagne, but not merely a glass or even a bottle: to gain access to this pen for the wealthy and thirsty, you must purchase, at a minimum, a magnum — that is 1.5 litres or the volume of two standard bottles.It will cost you £230 ($310), but if that’s too meagre an amount to spend there are more lavish options. The bubbly is available in Jeroboams (three litres, £500), Salmanazars (nine litres, £1,500) and Balthazars (12 litres, £2,000). The latter vessels look like like they are from a cartoon, novelty sized bottles that would take at least two people to pour, and surely can’t actually contain anything drinkable… but apparently they do.Disaster strikes the Veuve Clicquot champagne garden (The Athletic)In reality they tend not to sell anything above a magnum. The others are just there for show. But they do represent something else about Lord’s on the day of a Test match. It is often not just about the cricket.You can quite comfortably go to Lord’s for the cricket without actually watching any cricket. And, despite tickets for this game costing up to £115, many people do just that.Some start early, and plan things carefully. Behind the pavilion, the 136-year-old red brick building that dominates one end of the ground, lie a couple of quiet gardens. One of them, the Coronation Garden, is lined with benches and dozens of people arrive well before play to reserve spots for their picnics later on in the day with a wide array of bags, blankets, umbrellas and even a couple of suitcases.“It’s a bit like Benidorm, people reserving their sunbeds with towels,” says Toby, a regular in this quiet corner of Lord’s. Does it get competitive? “Well, I’ve never seen a punch thrown…”Picnic places are reserved from early in the morning in the Coronation Garden (The Athletic)Just to the left of the Coronation Garden is the Lord’s museum, which houses a huge range of cricket artefacts, from shirts worn in World Cup finals to bats used by Don Bradman and Len Hutton to its centrepiece, the actual Ashes urn. It is a fascinating place to learn about cricket’s past, but surely not many people go in while cricket’s present is taking place about 50 yards away?Well, it turns out they do.They estimate that anything between 900 and 1,300 people go through the door on each day of a Test match, which is pretty good going considering the capacity of Lord’s is just over 31,000. Shivam is here from India, not so much to watch England play New Zealand but more on a pilgrimage to the ‘home’ of cricket. “This is just as important as the game,” he says, grinning widely after perusing the exhibits.Lord’s is as much of a tourist attraction as it is a sporting venue, and it is very good at moving money from your pocket to theirs. It’s a slick operation away from the stands: everything is cashless so queues are short and, unlike many other cricket grounds in England, there’s plenty of space outside the stands in which to a) move around and b) house a huge number of food, drink and merchandise concessions.You could easily spend a day here eating. Pizzas, burgers and fried chicken are available of course, but there’s curry, Lebanese, Greek, Italian and crepes. And that’s just in the public areas: it’s in hospitality where you can definitively cash in, food-wise, and thus the place where it’s really possible to go for a whole day without watching a ball bowled.Around 4,500 hospitality meals are served each day, along with a delightfully English 12,000 scones (half fruit, half plain) and another 12,000 tea cakes per Test.Crucially they make it pretty easy to follow the action without actually being in the stands. Or rather, it’s pretty easy to follow the action while sitting at one of the many food or drink outlets.There are screens everywhere showing the cricket, from monitors above the bars to big screens on the Nursery Ground, the practice area at the north end of Lord’s. You can buy little radios that relay commentary from Sky Sports or the BBC. If you’re familiar with the sounds of the crowd, you can pretty much tell what’s going on: polite applause with a murmur of appreciation means a boundary; big cheers mean a wicket for England; more isolated but still loud cheers mean a wicket for New Zealand.Big screens keep people updated on events 50 yards away out on the pitch (The Athletic)The gravitas of the place is utilised, the palpable sense that this is special, a day out: most people will only come to one day of international cricket here each year, and with it comes a “sure, why not spend £230 on champagne, this is an occasion” attitude. It feels a bit like an inverted version of the tactics that casinos in Las Vegas use to keep the players playing.There it’s sensory deprivation — no windows, no clocks — to make you lose track of time. Here it’s more sensory overload, with the sheer number of options to eat, drink and spend money.Which brings us back to the Veuve Clicquot Garden, and the reason that people seem to spend the day here without watching much cricket: the drink.At the start of every Test there are 286,000 pints of assorted types of beer on site. Assuming the match lasts all five days, that works out at just under two pints per person but, it’s probably fair to say, some people are supping more than their share. Partly because there are 8,500 bottles of champagne knocking around, too.Jim emerges after a lengthy spell on those yellow chairs. “My brother had a spare ticket,” he says, when asked if he’s spent much time in his seat in the stands, watching the cricket. “I’m happy just to go along with the lads,” gesturing to where his group was a few seconds ago, but who have now melted back into the crowd.Tony gets quite serious, in that way drunk people often do, when asked in as benign and non-judgemental a way as possible, if he sees why it might look a bit weird to attend an elite sporting event without watching much elite sport. “It’s a social thing too. I could watch the cricket if I just stayed at home, but I come here to have a good day out with my mates.”An MCC member sets up his picnic table in the Coronation Garden before play on day one (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)There are plenty of similar scenes elsewhere, most of them connected to alcohol. In The 22 Yard Tap, a bar on the top of the Food Village near the Nursery Ground, a group dances to ‘Don’t Blame It On The Boogie’, which is being played at such a volume that you could easily not be aware of the cricket.On a bench nearby, a woman laments: “We’ve run out of booze!” She then throws a cigarette butt to the floor and for a brief moment I am enraged, holy ground desecrated. Her friend asks if they want to watch some cricket. Noses are scrunched.They depart in the direction of the bar.When Ollie Robinson takes three wickets in an over, a man in advanced stages of refreshment dashes from the bar in the Harris Garden to watch a replay on the big screens, through the gap between two stands. He identifies himself only as ‘Dave’, but it’s not entirely clear if that’s actually his name or the only word his remaining cognitive functions will allow him to say.“We missed three wickets!” exclaims another man nearby. The Harris Garden remains full, patrons unmoved by events in the middle or unaware.The bar is crammed in the Harris Garden (The Athletic)By now, the day has reached the evening session and more white seats are visible. The ratio of people in the stands to those milling around the concourse has shifted towards the latter. A day of international Test cricket, in theory the most prestigious form of the game, has passed and not everyone present has been watching.This is said without judgment. There is an instinctive temptation to think ‘someone who loves the game could’ve had that seat you didn’t sit in’, but that feels petty and pointless. There are different ways of enjoying sport, and half the point of sport is that it brings people together, creates bonds: why not spend the day getting sloshed with your friends?Just make sure you get there early to reserve your picnic spot.