Magic at Lord's
LORD'S - Even Harry Potter couldn't conjure up an England Test match victory as the rain fell at Lord's - but I'm sure he tried. The actor who plays Harry, Daniel Radcliffe spent his 18th birthday at the home of cricket and joined Jonathan Agnew at lunch for a very special View from the Boundary.
You can listen to the whole interview online here.
It was his first live cricket match after getting into the game over the last year.
"Most people got into cricket when we won the Ashes; I got into it when we were beaten 5-0!".
Daniel was in Australia working when the 2006/2007 Ashes took place down under and he told Aggers it was Paul Collingwood's double century in Adelaide that got him hooked. "It was the celebration when he got to his 200, it was so impassioned. He gave a cry out when he did it - so emotional, almost primeval and a bit scary but really inspirational".
Daniel said he was stirred into patriotism by the constant Australian gloating about the series - as an Englishman down under he thought it was his duty to get behind the England side no matter how badly they were doing.
The 18-year-old is mostly used to giving out autographs - but he admitted he queued with other cricket fans to get signatures from Andrew Strauss and Sachin Tendulkar.
It was ironic that when Strauss found out Daniel was going to be joining us at lunch he asked Aggers to get a Harry Potter book signed for his child!
Strauss has also featured in a recent nightmare that Daniel suffered. "I was telling people in a recent interview that I had a dream that Andrew Strauss was chasing me with a cricket bat. It was during the West Indies series when Andrew wasn't doing too well and an Australian who was listening in piped up and said 'I wouldn't worry about Strauss, if he had a swing at you at the moment he'd probably miss!'"
Anyway, it was a pleasure to have Daniel on TMS - he told us he is a big fan of the programme and we presented him with a TMS 50 year anniversary signed book and of course a TMS birthday cake.
He later spent some time in the England dressing room meeting the players - and this time he didn't have to wait for a signature from Strauss.
And no, he didn't run after him with his bat!
Don't forget, you can download our Test Match Special podcast to get Jonathan Agnew and Geoff Boycott's reactions to each day's play.
