A DAY AT THE CRICKET ?

The picture above shows the St. Lawrence Ground in Canterbury, the home of Kent County Cricket Club, on a day of inclement weather.   Now it has been 604 days today since spectators were allowed into the ground and it must be all of 700 days since I made my last visit;  all due to Mr. Covid and his variant chums.

So it was with a good deal of expectation that my eldest son and I were able to return to the ground yesterday following the partial lifting of Covid restrictions.   He is a member of KCCC and is entitled to bring a `guest` with him as part of his membership and so I was privileged to be his guest yesterday.   The game against Glamorgan was due to start at 11.00 am but after our journey through the beautiful Kent countryside, parking the car, getting the Park and Ride bus down to the ground and going through all the Covid checks, we were a bit late in arriving.

We shouldn`t have been too concerned because, after taking our socially distanced seats in the open air around the boundary, we discovered that there was a delay is starting the game due to the fact that a large area of the outfield was too wet to allow play to commence.  There had apparently been some heavy and persistent overnight rain in Canterbury.  

The umpires had inspected the ground and decided that play had not been possible at 11.00am but they would make another inspection at 12.20pm.  That came and went with the decision for the players to have lunch at 12.50 and the umpires would have another inspection at 1.30.  That came and went as well - and all the while we were sat in our seats getting more and more uncomfortable in the `inclement weather` as the south west wind becoming stronger and the temperature never reaching anything that it should be in late May. 

I think it was Oscar Hammerstein who suggested that "May was full of promises but she didn`t keep `em quick enough for some.  And a crowd of doubting Thomases was predicting that the Summer`d never come."  Well, he wasn`t wrong.

So we munched our packed lunches and waited the outcome of yet another pitch inspection. That also came and went with the promise of another inspection at 2.40 and as the day wore on it became obvious that we would see hardly any cricket to speak of, so we gave up and came home.  The frustrating thing was that all the time we sat there, there was no rain at all - just that a part of the outfield had not dried sufficiently to allow play to begin.  But we learned later that it did begin - at 4.30pm - and Kent, having lost the toss and been put in to bat promptly made 70 for the loss of two wickets before proceedings were drawn to a close for the day.  

It could only happen in the hallowed world of County Championship cricket and could only happen on a May day which promised so much but delivered so little, especially having waited patiently for almost two years to be back in the enveloping surroundings of a good old fashioned cricket ground..  Maybe Summer will arrive - I hope so because despite the frustrations of yesterday I hope to be back there again in two weeks time for the visit of Northamptonshire.  Fingers crossed.  And a word of praise to Kent County Cricket Club - their hard work and attention to every detail to ensure the safety of their visitors in these trying times was exemplary.