Anyone listening to the thunder and the rain pounding on the windows yesterday morning will have firstly, looked at the calendar to confirm this is June and barely a week from the longest day, and secondly, have doubted any cricket could be played in Cumbria, writes Ashley Tiffen.
The first, of course, is indisputable, but the second, thanks to the tireless work behind the scenes by ground staff, should never be taken for granted.
While these reports focus on the players, we must always recognise the valuable, behind the scenes, work carried out by volunteers at the clubs and the league management.
Umpires, scorers, ground staff, committee members, tea makers, beer servers and all the others who keep the game alive, Cumbria Cricket would not be the same without each and every one of them.
Unfortunately, the rain put paid to any play at Dalton, due to face Cockermouth, Whitehaven who were due to face Millom, or at Wigton due to play Workington who were foiled by the weather for the second week running.
However, a start was made at Cleator and Keswick, albeit the latter over an hour after the scheduled start time.
At Cleator, the home side put visiting Egremont into bat and while they lost both openers neither scoring and with only 8 wides on the board, the league’s bottom and winless team, did make a fist of it.
Professional Taran Marwah hit 22, Owen Thompson 32 and Matthew Hunter 29 not out, took the visitors to 101 from 31 overs with Tom Sharpe taking 2 for 32 from his 10 overs, before the weather intervened to bring proceedings to an end with both teams getting 4 points.
Meanwhile at Fitz Park, the league leaders and home side were put in by their closest rivals, Furness when play finally got underway.
Furness struck early with Will Atkinson falling in the second over with the score on 7 and with runs hard to come by against determined opening bowlers, Peter Lawson and Josh Shaw, lost Stephen Hindmarch in the 1-0th over with only 26 on the board.
Clearly an injection of runs was required and while wicketkeeper Oscar Link took a couple of overs to get going, he and professional Raveen Yasas were soon in their stride as they put on 76 for the 3rd wicket before he fell for 55 from 36 balls caught Samson Storey from the bowling of Lawson.
Lawson was to bag a second wicket only 8 balls later, albeit this time running out Link for 35 before, only 3 balls later he got one for his figures, bowling Glen Weightman for a first ball duck with the scoreboard on 111.
At that point, the hard work of all was for naught as the match was abandoned.
So, with all matches abandoned and 4 points each, nothing changes in the league table with Keswick leading Furness by 3 points with Cockermouth a further 7 away.
Next week, the standout fixture looks to be Keswick’s visit to Cockermouth while Whitehaven travel the short distance down the A595 to near neighbours, Egremont, Cleator make the long trek to Furness with Wigton making a similar trek to Millom. Finally, Dalton make the long trip to Workington.
All fixtures due to start at 1pm and all of Cumbria Cricket will be hoping for much better weather.
