AS our little island continues to sink under the weight of water, the rapidly increasing number of abandoned cricket matches is starting to come under close scrutiny.
“How much longer will it go on raining,” “It’s been a complete disaster this season,” and “It’s the worst summer I can ever remember,” are just some of the comments I seem to be hearing on a weekly basis.
So just how bad has it been so far?
With seven weeks remaining (six in the Conference) we have so far lost 67 games to the weather – 34 in the Premiership and 33 in the Conference – and have already overtaken the seasons of 2005 and 2002 when 65 were washed out, 2001 (63), 2004 (42) and 2003 (31).
But rather surprisingly, given everyone’s concept of last year being a good summer, we still trail the 2006 total of 90 wash-outs by 23, while the summer of 2000 was as monumental for the 95 rained-off games as much as it being the year of the millennium.
Also remarkable is the fact that this is the first season for many years that none of the Romida Sykes Cup ties has had to go into evening play – until this week of course, when Delph & Dobcross’s clash with Skelmanthorpe was once again a casualty (no surprise there given the recent history involving this particular match-up).
Twelve months ago, every round up to the semis went into carry over days, something of which I’m sure no-one from either Delph or Skelmanthorpe needs reminding.
The Examiner Twenty/20 has suffered one or two delays this season, but then so did the old Examiner Eights, that’s not unusual.
So all in all, we may not be seeing much in the way of sun, and having more monsoons than Mandalay in May, but we still have some way to go before becoming the worst cricketing summer for years!
But as the League’s Executive secretary Paul Whiteley quite rightly admitted: “The league has a mere logistical problem. That simply does not compare with the problems thousands of people have nationwide.”
