Rain stops play for a week

Posted by Tony Hutton

Trent Bridge in the sun

After an early start to the season on 31st March and 1st April the rains took their revenge with a vengeance. No cricket for the next eight days in fact due to both the weather and a certain lack of information which eventually ended on Saturday 8th April in a somewhat surprising fashion.

Saturday 2nd April should have been a pre-season friendly between New Rover CC and near neighbours St Chads CC, last season's Wetherby League champions. Knowing how groundsman Keith Boyce nutures his excellent wicket we were not surprised to find the game was off, as were several others that day.

Sunday 3rd should have been another game at New Rover just off the Leeds outer ring road, but it was even wetter. The following day seemed more promising at first. One version of the ever changing weather forecast suggested a dry morning with possible showers later. So ever hopeful we set off for Richmond in North Yorkshire where Durham 2nd XI were due to play Worcester 2nd XI in a one day trophy match. The previous days friendly between the two teams had been abandoned.

As we drove north the drizzly rain got stronger and when we arrived at Richmond the ground was deserted apart from the hapless groundsman struggling to keep his precious square dry. So obviously no play today. One alternative was to travel further north to Chester le Street, where Durham were due to be playing the local university side. Good job we didn't as no play there either!

To our surprise the Yorkshire CCC website had a report the next morning of a game between Yorkshire 2nd XI and Durham 2nd XI but no venue was mentioned for this mystery match which had not been publicised. A quick phone call revealed a two day game at the Racecourse Ground, Durham which we could have seen on Tuesday if we had known about it.

Next day we were not prepared to gamble with another long trip to Durham where play did in fact take place for most of the day despite another adverse forecast
Thursday was earmarked for domestic duties and as far as we knew no cricket was scheduled for Friday. So by then we were into Saturday where in theory we were spoilt for choice with endless pre-season friendlies in store. However heavy rain throughout the week had already wiped some out and others seemed doubtful.

We set off for a nice ride over Otley Chevin and Ilkley Moor to Keighley where the home side were scheduled to play Yorkshire Academy in a friendly game. The ground was locked the gates shut - obviously off. An interesting circular tour back to Leeds past several cricket grounds with no signs of action, although there were stumps in the ground at Ben Rhydding for action of some kind.

Back into Leeds we knew of three scheduled games which all proved to be off too, but passing the Headingley CC ground in Glen Road we eventually did find a game in progress between the home side and visitors Brook Walton from Wakefield. After watching a few overs we returned up the road to Weetwood, where in passing my travelling companion had seen some figures in white in the distance.

This made it all worthwhile as the Keighley game had been transferred to the home of the Yorkshire Academy, but of course no mention of this on the Yorkshire website. Here we were able to sit in the sun for a couple of hours enjoying a real game of cricket.
Young batting hopeful Harry Brook retired on 82 soon after our arrival but we were entertained by some good batting by the Academy whose innings ended on 257-6.

After tea it clouded over and got considerably cooler. Jared Warner, the England under 19 quick bowler took an early wicket and Keighley were struggling to get anywhere near the Yorkshire total and lost wickets at regular intervals. We soon departed and eventually learned the result on Monday at Headingley, with the Academy winning by about 140 runs. No result or report on either Yorkshire or Keighley websites of course.

First century of the season by Mullaney of Notts

Sunday and Monday saw a return to normal service with full days at Trent Bridge and Headingley, as related by Brian Sanderson. Indeed a full house of all three bloggers at Headingley today, along with many of our cricketing friends we had not seen since last season. So our summer way of life is almost back to normal and weather permitting we
will look forward to having many more good days to report upon.

Stern warning notice at Trent Bridge

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