Rain, rain and cricket?..

There's a storm 'a' coming..

Saturday bought about the first weekend of the Wetherby League and with it as seems to be typical for the cricket season plenty of rain.  I spent the majority of the week checking and then re-checking various weather channels and websites in the vague hope that there would be some if not all of a day's play.  To be honest when it reached Thursday and the rain continued to fall any hopes I had were disappearing as quickly as the rain down the street drains.

Further browsing on Twitter bought news that games in the Bradford League had already been called off and although I did initially agree that this sounded like the right decision it did seem a bit hasty as the weather reports started to improve.

Luckily no further rain fell from Friday afternoon and after a brief shower on Saturday morning we seemed good to go.  From waking up (early of course) to the sun streaming through the bedroom window, most of Saturday morning was spent looking anxiously at the phone waiting for the 'killer' text or phone call.  None came and bags were packed and placed in the car and I was off.

By some miracle the ground had managed to cope with the deluges and despite there being a slightly boggy outfield, the wicket seemed remarkably firm under foot.  It must be mentioned that our groundsman Mike had done an excellent job in getting the square into any playable order.

New kit was handed out, banter and jokes banded about and we then found ourselves put into bat.  This being my first full season (hopefully!) with the 1st team I was put down to bat at 5.  Given the strength of our batting unit I certainly did not expect to find myself going in at the 19th over, but after a couple of quick wickets this was exactly where I was after narrowly avoiding disappearing into the bog that had settled near the boundary.

Hoping the Winter's training would pay off, nothing could have prepared me for the first delivery of the season.  The offie who hadn't turned the ball much through his spell ripped one past my tentative poke and nearly clean bowled me.  Luckily it somehow missed clipping my pad and going on and after a few defensive shots I was away much to relief with a clip to midwicket. 

After managing to settle into the innings, an unfortunate bad decision not on my part had me sat back in the pavilion cursing my luck of being run out for 12.  In thinking about it a dive would have probably saved me but I still thought the umpire triggered me very quickly.  Being run out has to be the most annoying dismissal as apart from running slightly quicker (usually not possible) you haven't done anything technically wrong.

The innings then lulled and we were eventually dismissed for 123, 30 to 40 runs short of a competitive total.  The team are clearly a lot better than low scores such as this and I am sure we will find our feet in the second division quickly.

When we took to the field our bowlers did an excellent job in trying to get us back into the game but after a short spell where we thought we were on the top the runs were knocked off with relative ease. 

Although I was disappointed to lose, I was certainly grateful of getting the game in and relieving the 'cabin fever' of netting all Winter and not playing a competitive game. 

As I write this now the rain continues to pour down and any chances of playing this week seem to decrease by the hour, however if there is anything that I have learnt from last week the 'Cricketing Gods' can sometimes even smile on a club from a small village in North Yorkshire.  Let's hope they are in a good mood again this week.

Hillam & Monk Fryston 123 all out (0) lost to Kirk Hammerton 124-6 (6)