Matches cancelled

Press, 23 February 1987, Page 20

Matches cancelled

Sir,—Would the Christchurch Suburban Cricket Association care to explain why its third and fourth grade matches were cancelled last Saturday? Admittedly, as things turned out, the weather in the afternoon was not very good for cricket but the morning was quite reasonable and the forecast mentioned only “possible light showers.” It is not the first time this season that games have been cancelled, apparently only because of some rain the previous day, and there seems to be a widely held belief among players that the cancellation is because City Council staff have not marked the grounds. If that is so, it is a pretty unsatisfactory state of affairs because charges for the wickets are high and the quality is generally very low. This is bad enough without unnecessary reduction of the number of playing days. — Yours, etc., D. HOCKLEY. February 14, 1987.

[The secretary of the Christchurch Suburban Cricket Association, Mr P. Russell, replies: “I would like to emphasise that cancellations are not made lightly. Many factors are taken into account and also the fact that the councils have the final say where the grounds are considered unfit for play. It must be appreciated that although the Saturday may be fine the week days preceding, if continually wet, would naturally have a bearing on wickets being available for play. The preparation and marking of wickets must also be considered as weather may prevent this being done during the week. On Friday last the council advised us that if there was any further rain most of the wickets would be out as there had been no opportunity to prepare and mark all grounds. Further rain fell and we had no option but to cancel. Already this season we had to cancel third and fourth grade owing to advice from the council that eleven wickets were unavailable for play owing to heavy rain during the week.”]