Time is running out for one of England’s oldest and most exclusive rivalries

At Lord’s Cricket Ground in the quiet, well-heeled streets of northwest London, different architectural eras collide together in a mishmash of mismatching styles representing the old and the new.

At Lord’s Cricket Ground in the quiet, well-heeled streets of northwest London, different architectural eras collide together in a mishmash of mismatching styles representing the old and the new. A grand 134-year-old pavilion, its sandy brown stone façade covered in ornate embellishments, sits at one end, staring at a futuristic glass media center across the pitch which balances on white columns and peers like a giant oblong eye over the ground. And never is that collision between the old and new more evident than when Lord’s, the self-styled “home” of cricket and one of its most prestigious grounds, hosts the annual schoolboys fixture Eton vs. Harrow. The fixture – in which two of England’s most exclusive and expensive boys’ private schools play one another – is older than the oldest brick at this ground, first played in 1805 before Lord’s was even at its current location. But it has become increasingly controversial and somewhat emblematic of the attempts of British institutions to reconcile their pasts with the present after it was axed from Lord’s schedule by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), which owns the ground, in 2022. That provoked an uproar from its members and the warring factions eventually reached a compromise in which Lord’s would host both the Eton vs. Harrow and Oxford vs.Cambridge fixtures for another five years, as well as the finals of the UK’s school and university cricket competitions, before another consultation with members in 2027. CNN has contacted Eton and Harrow for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.