Seen it all now. We batted first and managed 138 all out with a weakened team. Then during the lunch break, the heavens opened....
Hailstones the size of marbles were left on the outfield. Very little chance of the second half being played due to the puddles left when the hailstones melted. Even more so when the opposition removed the covers and managed to spill the remaining water over the pitch on an average length (village stuff).
Cue the most bizarre sight I've seen at a cricket ground for years. One of their lads heads towards the groundsman's container and comes back with a petrol leafblower and proceeds to try and blow off these puddles of water that were on a length! 10 - 15 minutes later he'd managed to blow the water away but the area was still soaking wet. Being towards the top of the table, they obviously fancied their chances of knocking the runs off against our weakened team (quite rightly so) so they had no problem batting on what now was a 'spicy' wicket.
However... what Mr. Leaf Blower man failed to take into account was the bowlers run ups that were still soaking. Our complaints fell on deaf ears and were told just to 'get on with it' by the umpire. Our opening bowler went for 16 off his first over (wides galore) as you could see quite rightly that he was worried that he would hurt himself.
We gave him a couple of more overs but we ended up turning to our spinner from that end just so nobody would end up hurting themselves. They eventually knocked them with just the 1 wicket down. Credit to them, they batted really well - but I thought cricket was supposed to be an even contest? When you have to change tactics because you don't want anybody to get hurt - it becomes a farce in my eyes.
What the umpire was thinking I'll never know.
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Topic: YOUR 2017 SEASON (Read 220254 times)