Strange behaviour by Lancashire

Posted by Tony Hutton

The small band of cricket enthusiasts who watch cricket at the home of Leeds/Bradford University at Weetwood in Leeds, having already been robbed of their Saturday afternoons of Yorkshire Academy cricket by the late decision to remove them from the Yorkshire Premier League North, had further grounds for complaint last week by the behaviour of Lancashire County Cricket club.

A three day friendly game between the University side and Lancashire second eleven was scheduled to start on Thursday 7th April and the Lancashire website proudly stated that a strong 13 man squad including skipper Dane Vilas, Matt Parkinson, newcomer Phil Salt and others would take part. Parkinson in particular must have been looking forward to actually playing cricket, after a long winter trailing round Australia and the West Indies as a permanent spare part in the England squad.

However it appears that Lancashire did not travel on the first day, presumably due to a overnight rain which affected the outfield. However hopes were high for two days cricket on the Friday and Saturday with a good forecast, bright sunshine from early morning and the excellent field ready for play. I gather that Lancashire did travel on Friday, arriving before 10 a.m., but for some reason decided that they did not want to play and quickly disappeared back to Manchester having called the whole game off.  

The outfield may have still been a little damp and I gather the home side offered to field first in order to placate their highly paid and valuable visitors. However to no avail and the University lads were left high and dry to spend the day at net practice. The worst aspect of this sad saga seems to be that Lancashire were well on their way home before second eleven coach Karl Krikken took the trouble to phone the hard working Weetwood groundsman, Richard Robinson, to tell him that the game had been called off.

The ground had been played on the previous week by Yorkshire County Cricket club for two full days during which the county side totted up a total exceeding 400, with two century makers, so nothing much wrong with the wicket. With Lancashire not playing in the first round of Championship matches it would appear that two days cricket against a strong University side would have been ideal preparation for them.

As it is Lancashire's reputation on this side of the Pennines has now reached an all time low and, at a time when county cricket needs all the friends it can get, has left a very poor impression of the game. An e-mail to Lancashire asking for reasons behind the decision was acknowledged, but not replied to. All that has appeared on the county's website is the two words 'Match Abandoned'. Not good enough Lancashire.