This summer has been the most annoying summer of my life.
Hot summers in Adelaide are bad, but wet summers in England when there is cricket to be played are far, far worse.
I play cricket for Morebath Cricket Club, and we have teams in the West Somerset Cricket League (Saturdays – Division 1) and in the North Devon Cricket League (Sundays – Division 3). Both teams finished second in their respective divisions last year and so were promoted this year. I like to play as much cricket as possible, which means I normally play for both teams, as well as any friendly/cup games that happen during the week. I also play the occasional mid-week friendly for Stoodleigh if I get the chance. It is safe to say that I have become slightly cricket obsessed. 
Anyway, ever since April it has rained. Not just a little bit of rain, here and there, or the occassional down-pour, but sustained, unrelenting, heavy rain. Until last week we hadn’t had two sunny days in a row since April. This isn’t good for cricket.
As of last week, we had only played THREE North Devon League games all year. Three! We had already had 6 or 7 games abandoned because of rain or wet pitches. Fortunately we had played a few more Saturday games, but it still wasn’t as many as we should have played. One weekend we were meant to have games on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. All four were cancelled.
It has been boring and frustrating.
But last week was different. From last Sunday we had 8 days in a row with blue skies. Blue skies! I had forgotten about them. It was warm (above 20!), and it only rained a little bit. On Friday I got a little hot!
This meant that, come Sunday, we finally got a game of cricket, and the pitch was decent too. The little bit of rain meant that it was easy to roll, and the mostly dry weather meant that it had been given the chance to dry out. Compared to everything else we’d played on it looked an absolute belter!
So, at 2pm on Sunday the 6th of August 2007, on what became the hottest day of the year, we started our 4th cricket match of the season.
We lost the toss and I opened the bowling as usual with an attrocious over that went for 13. I bowled a bit better in my other 8 overs, and ended up with figures of 3-54. Not great, but OK. I took a catch as well, and Filleigh finished on 253-3.
I was in to bat at number 4 and was at the crease a bit earlier than I had hoped, but I felt good and the wicket was good. Chasing 253 was always going to be hard, but we had only lost a few wickets and the number 6 batsmen and I were slowly building up the run rate. I passed 50, then he passed 50, and somehow we’d knocked up 200.
With 7 overs left we needed just over 50, which was very gettable the way we were going. Unfortunately, I played a shot down the ground and my batting partner had to move to avoid it. While doing so, he twisted his knee and fell to the ground, forcing me to run back to my own end. He managed to stand up, but he needed a runner. Ho hum. Runners are never good.
The very next ball I hit to deep mid-off. I ran one, turned around, hesitated, saw that the runner had started running, so I raced back for two. The fielder, however, had noticed my hesitation and thrown the ball to the keeper. Damn. Out by three inches.
I finished up with 69 runs, and our batting collapsed after that. We were all out for 208, but it was a good game nonetheless. It was great to have a nice summer day for once, and to be able to spend it chasing after and hitting a hard leather ball around here.
Basic match report is here: North Devon Cricket League
The weather for the rest of summer (ha!) doesn’t look like it’s going to improve, but I cross my fingers and hope that we won’t have any more abandoned games. The winter is long, and I want to have a few more innings to think about and dissect before cricket season next year. 
