Local cricket was a bit like the proverbial London bus on Saturday. You wait three months for the season to start and find that the first elevens of the three clubs on your doorstep are all at home. Spoilt for choice and undaunted by light rain I opted to visit Green Hammerton's Harrogate Road ground on what was a historic day, not just in terms of the playing conditions imposed by covid 19 but because after 100 years the Wetherby League is now The Leeds and Wetherby Cricket League. This new title reflects the fact that of the twelve clubs that make up the league eleven have LS postcodes. The exception to this is Green Hammerton based as it is at YO26 8AB. Green Hammerton is just ten miles from York and twenty five miles from Leeds and it must have been tempting for the club to join the exodus of clubs to the York League.
The reward for this loyalty is a place in the first division of the 'new' league, and asking around it seems that this may well be the first time the club has played at this level. The club has had a somewhat chequered history over the last fifty years, having on two occasions played away from the village but they came home in 2002 and since 2010 have enjoyed the facilities of the new village hall for changing and refreshment, until Saturday that is when players were expected to arrive changed and bring their own teas.
When I arrived and despite the drizzle, play was underway and visitors Crossgates were batting. I had not been there long when all pretence at normality was abandoned when the fielding side left the field for a sanitising break, the first I had witnessed in seventy years of watching and playing cricket. If not a red letter day certainly a clean hands day.
This procedure was repeated every six overs throughout the afternoon.
Crossgates made slow progress to start with but the scoring rate was soon stepped up and Hammerton's fielding became increasingly ragged. 215 for 4 off the prescribed 35 overs looked a formidable score and so it proved with Hammerton making a woeful start to find themselves 11 for 3. Things improved a little mainly thanks to a stand between Amit Patel and Ryan Blackburn but with seven batsmen dismissed for single figures the innings closed after 24 overs for 100, a shortfall of 115, a chastening afternoon for Green Hammerton who may feel that greatness has been thrust upon them.
In closing I must congratulate the two umpires, David Spavin and John Fisher, on the admirable way in which they coped with the extra regulations, and both teams on the good spirit in which the game was played.
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