CRICKET Rain stopped play
On 14th August 1975 north London suffered a ‘storm of the century’ – 170 mm (nearly seven inches) of rain in three hours at its Hampstead epicentre, causing flood devastation – to bring a notably sunny summer to an abrupt halt. I remember it well. I was playing cricket.
PICTURE: Dave Young
It was a quintessentially English experience. We were a scratch side mainly composed of Ministry of Agriculture employees assembled to play a 20-over evening match on Finsbury Park. I don’t know if anyone had looked at the weather forecast beforehand, but by the time we were setting up stumps at around 5.30, the sky
to the north-west looked like it had fallen into a bucket of black ink. It was clear that within a matter of minutes there was going to be at the very least a torrential downpour upon us. And what did we do? We pretended to take no notice. We donned our whites, took our places in the field, the opposition batsmen padded up and marched out to the wicket, our opening bowler marked out his run up,
the umpire gestured for play to begin. Even as the bowler ran in to deliver the first ball, the first drops began to fall. By the time we made it back to the pavilion we were soaked to the skin. Within fifteen minutes the ground was awash.
Well, it wasn’t quite like that at Horntye last Saturday for Hastings Priory’s Sussex Premier League match against Middleton. The forecast was merely for low intensity rain to start falling by noon, the appointed start, and likely to get more serious as the afternoon wore on. Sure enough a drizzle had already begun by the time the players gathered, and play was duly held up. It ceased after an hour or so, without much change in the leaden colour of the sky above, and with the 50 overs allocated to each batting side reduced to 34, Priory took the field. The rain held off for a further hour and a half while 25 overs were bowled, then it returned. And that was that: Middleton 124 for three, match abandoned.
In a logical cricketing universe the umpires would have had the power to assess the conditions in the light of the forecast, pronounced at the start that there was unlikely to be a weather window for more than a 15-over match, and set the format accordingly. Alternatively everyone could have gone home at 12 noon and spent time with the family. But that’s, as we say, not cricket.
Priory injuries
Priory’s league season had started confidently enough the previous Saturday when they defeated newly promoted Ifield by 43 runs. Put into bat, their total of 145 did not seem a lot to defend, only new boy Greg Devlin and veteran John Morgan getting past 20. But the home side struggled against the variety of Priory’s five-man bowling attack which shared out the wickets. Morgan capped a fine all-round display with four of them.
Bad news last Friday, though, when young fast bowler Adam Barton reported that he had broken his thumb playing for MCC Young Professionals. And worse immediately before the Middleton match, when new South African recruit Alistair Maasch, who plays top club cricket in Capetown as a seaming all-rounder and is staying with relatives in Battle this summer, dislocated his shoulder in the warm-up.
A cameo innings
The potential role of overseas imports in the Sussex Premier was then underlined by a cameo knock from Middleton batsman Mahesh Rawat, who hit 24 not out off 23 balls including three leg-side fours off successive balls from Priory spinner Jed O’Brien. Rawat used to captain the Indian Railways side, has played for Rajasthan Royals and Pune Warriors in the Indian IPL, and scored 880 runs playing for Ashtead in the Surrey Premier League last season. He looked capable of dominating an innings in any conditions at this level, unleashing a series of shots of impudent authority. Middleton could be a serious force in the league if he maintains this form. Perhaps it was just as well for Priory that the rain returned to head him off.
Priory will be back at Horntye tomorrow (19th May) to entertain Brighton & Hove in the third round of league matches. Their visitors made an assured start with a comfortable victory over the more fancied Cuckfield team and are likely to include the former Sussex and Scotland batsman Matt Machan in their line-up. At the time of writing I am unaware of the weather forecast. But I suggest you might take an umbrella with you if you’re going to watch, just in case.
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