A morning in Moseley Village before the match

Most people heading to Edgbaston on match day come straight from Birmingham New Street, follow the signs, and miss the fact that one of the city's best neighbourhoods sits less than a mile from the ground. Moseley is that neighbourhood.

It's a village in the original sense — a high street with a proper farmers' market, a cluster of independent pubs that have been there for decades, and no chains worth mentioning. The locals take a quiet pride in that last point. Moseley is the kind of place where the same coffee shop has been on the corner for fifteen years and people still treat it like a discovery.

For a cricket trip, the timing works well. The 1st ODI at Edgbaston is on 14 July. If you arrive the evening before or morning of the match, Moseley repays an hour or two of unhurried walking. The farmers' market runs on the last Saturday of each month, so timing will depend on your match day, but the high street is worth the walk regardless.

The food scene here is genuinely good. Zindiya on Woodbridge Road does Indian street food — chaat, rolls, chai — the kind of thing that makes sense before a day of watching India bat. The Prince of Wales on Alcester Road has been trading since 1860 and has one of the better beer gardens in the city — four bars, a wine shed, a tiki shack, and a big screen that occasionally shows cricket.

Moseley Bog is worth knowing about if you're travelling with people who aren't solely here for the cricket. It was the childhood playground of JRR Tolkien, who grew up nearby, and is said to have inspired the Old Forest in The Lord of the Rings. It's a fifteen-minute walk from the village centre and a decent way to spend an hour before the gates open.

Canon Hill Park is the other option — larger, more manicured, with a café and mini golf. It sits between Moseley and the cricket ground, so you can walk through it on the way to the match.

The bus from Moseley Village to near the ground takes about six minutes on the number 1. Walking takes around twenty minutes through Canon Hill Park, which on a July morning is not a hardship.