Worrying trends

posted by John Winn

With twitter bringing news of a number of postponements yesterday morning, clearing skies in the Lower Ure Valley saw me off to Ouseburn CC for their home game with Burton Leonard, two teams close to the relegation positions in Division One of the Nidderdale League.

Arriving with about ten overs gone I found the visitors batting and finding it hard going against the Ousebuen pace attack on a wicket that showed flashes of temper with the occasional ball lifting off a length. The run rate was little above two an over and with wickets falling at regular intervals Ouseburn got themselves into a strong position but a former player, John Moorhouse, shortened to 'Moose' on his shirt, rescued Burton Leonard with 105, taking full advantage of a short boundary on the pavilion side. The last 45 minutes or so of the innings was played in steady rain which sent the small band of spectators into the club house and where, amongst the farming community that regularly support the club, the talk was of barley yields and potato blight in this wretched summer., as well as cricket.

The final score after 45 overs was 186 for 7, which the chat over cups of tea seemed to feel would be too many for Ouseburn and certainly more than Burton Leonard should have been allowed to make. Pessimism was confounded however, for the runs were knocked off for the loss of only two wickets with Sam Parker making 65, and an unbeaten stand between skipper Chris Morrison and Jamie Bryant bringing home the bacon, or in an essentially arable farming area, should that be barley?

During the course of the match we were joined by two Whixley players whose match had been cancelled, not because of rain but because their opponents, Kippax had withdrawn from the league after forfeiting their previous two matches in Division Two of The Wetherby League. Kippax had begun the season with two teams in the league but after scoring 364 for 8 on the 7th of July, their second eleven forfeited the following week and were mentioned no more on the website, their record presumably having been expunged. There is no direct reference to Kippax's demise on the website but yesterday's cancellation seems to confirm rumours of their resignation which had reached me earlier in the week from a friend involved with Whixley CC. Sad news indeed but there were at least two other forfeitures in The Wetherby League yesterday and at least three in The Nidderdale.

 As we draw towards the close of this season far more matches fall to the weather than to clubs being unable to raise teams but talking to club officials one can see how the two are connected with players getting fed up of committing their Saturdays to cricket and then finding there is no play or the match is curtailed by a downpour. Ouseburn III for example travelled to Arthington yesterday, a journey of about twenty miles with a team containing three juniors, only for the match to be abandoned after one over.

At this time of the yea,r holidays and the start of football make the job of selection committees just that bit more difficult and yesterday there were no doubt players from the Yorkshire leagues who had followed The Rhinos to Wembley or Yorkshire CC to Cardiff. Let's hope that for the three or four Saturdays of league cricket that are left the sun shines and that this to some extent at least helps cricketers forget how many weeks they have spent watching it rain so that when the 2013 season comes round there will be a sense of anticipation rather than a feeling of it not being worth bothering.

All is not gloom of course and for many clubs there is much to play for and some already have good reason to be cheerful. Following yesterday's results in The Nidderdale League Little Ribston II are champions of Div 9 and in Division 2 Masham are twenty points clear of Bolton Abbey and can't be caught and thus are champions and will return to Div 1 after a one year sabbatical. Well done to them.