Turned out nice again

posted by John Winn

September will have to pull out all the stops if 2017 is not to enter cricketing lore as a poor summer but it has by no means been  the worst when the records are consulted. In recent years I remember 2012 as pretty bad and several postings reflected this. Just a glance at the titles of entries that Tony, Brian Sanderson and I made at the time sees the words wind, rain and wet crop up on several occasions but a look  much further back to 1956,  a time when blog wasn't even in the dictionary and a posting was likely to be stuck on a notice board, shows that 2017 perhaps hasn't been too bad after all.

Wisden for 1957 describes the previous year's weather as 'atrocious....which ruined match after match and was the wettest summer in memory' and a look at just a few weeks in high summer or what passed for it and the impact of the rain on Yorkshire's championship programme should make us grateful for the present times. Here are extracts from Wisden covering the period 28th July to 28th August during which Yorkshire played nine (sic) three day matches

July 28th to 31st v Glamorgan at Middlesbrough Cricket was confined to the first day, match drawn

August 1st to 3rd v Kent at Scarborough the match was restricted to the last day, no decision

August 4th to 7th v Lancs at Old Trafford rain delayed the start by three hours, match drawn

August 8th to 10th v Leicester at Grace Road Play continued in rain for some time before the match ended fifteen minutes early, match drawn

August 11th to 14th v Worcestershire at Bradford Yorkshire won by ten wickets despite the complete loss of the first day to rain

August 15th to 17th v Leicestershire at Scarborough Play was restricted to just over three hours on
the first day. No decision

August 18th to 21st v  Notts at Headingley The match could not start until half-past two on the second day, Drawn

August 22nd to 24th v Essex at Southend only one hour's play possible on the second day and following a sporting declaration by Yorkshire, Essex won by five wickets with a ball to spare when seven runs were taken off the last over bowled by Trueman

August 25th to 28th  v Kent at Dover Kent's season died as it had lived, plagued by miserably wet
weather. Match drawn first innings points to Yorkshire


Nine matches, only  two resulting in victories, only one at Headingley out of five home matches,  and hours and hours spent watching it rain and seven days washed out completely. The final test at The Oval lost over twelve hours to rain.

The semi finals for the National Club KO are now known and will be played on Sunday 27th of August, 12:00 starts

East Grinstead v  Wanstead and Snaresbrook

Wolverhampton v Ormskirk, let's hope for decent weather.