County Championship 2025. Division 1. Somerset v Hampshire 15^th, 16^th, 17^th and 18^th September. Taunton.

First day – No play. No. toss. Wind stopped play.

This was one of the more curious days that I have spent at the cricket. Wind stopped play. Or to take the official line, adverse weather conditions stopped play. By early afternoon the rain which had greeted the official start of play had virtually blown through. Literally, for every shower that came, and there were a few, scudded across the ground as if they had seen someone to whom they owed money. None lasted more than ten or 20 minutes and most less than that. The issue was the wind. It blew waves across the covers. Not waves of water, but of the covers themselves, rippling as the wind pushed though. ”Forty to fifty miles an hour gusts,” said one steward and my hat would have agreed with him, although it stuck loyally to my head throughout. But apparently, gusts of that strength can cause the large sheet covers to become unmanageable. And having thought about it, I concluded that I would prefer not to have to drag a 30-metre square yacht sail attached to nothing but my hand and a few others, 40 to 70 metres across an open field with the risk of a 50 miles per hour gust of wind taking it and my arm with it. Not to mention trying to fold it up. And then repeat five more times.

It made for a day with a difference. No cricket to watch. Just a cricket ground to walk around. How many times I don’t know. I lost count. But I clocked up five miles. And talked to a lot of people. Including one who had only been to the ground twice in his life, the first 35 years previously. He remembered where he had sat, but it wasn’t there anymore. Under a tree. He was certain of that, for it had been an uncomfortably hot day and he and his wife had found shade under the tree. And Somerset were playing Scotland in a limited overs match. I couldn’t help him with the Scottish match, but I was able to point out where the lime trees had been where the Somerset Stand is now. There is always something to talk about at the cricket. Even if there is no cricket.

And then there was the man who had seen Jamie Cox carrying the T20 Vitality Blast Cup which Somerset had won at the weekend. Producing his smartphone, he asked if he could take a photo of the Chief Executive with the trophy. “Why don’t you hold the trophy, give me your phone, and I’ll take a photo of you with the trophy?” the reply. And then, the talk of the T20 Vitality Blast. The quarter-final, the semi-final, the final. In all three, it seemed, Somerset were struggling hard at the halfway point of each innings, bowling and batting. In all six innings they had pulled the game back within range. They had never given up, with the result, shades of Ron Greenwood carrying the FA Cup on the Tube, the Chief Executive humping the Vitality Blast Trophy across the car park.

And then, the frustration. Three hours in bright sunshine, a furiously drying wind, disappearing rain and no cricket. One person expressed barely suppressed anger at the decision not to remove the covers, but most of the steadily shrinking crowd took it all in good heart. Each developed his or her coping mechanism as the minutes and hours ticked by. An acceptance that the elements can’t be controlled. An extra cup of coffee. Or two. Another walk around the ground. Or two. Falling down a search engine worm hole on a smartphone. Even reading one of those anachronistic throwbacks to the 20^th century, a newspaper. And some just went home. And then, the elements having their way, we all went home, even, I assume, the four who, as I left, had just sat down to drink their latest cup of coffee after the one who had gone to the Stragglers with the order had missed the ‘play abandoned for the day’ announcement while he was in there.       

Close. No play.