The Hundred: Fans left bemused over miscommunication around Sunday’s rain-affected double-header
Miscommunication about the rain delay for Sunday’s (August 8) double-header games in The Hundred left the English fans disappointed, as they had no word from the organisers as to why exactly the play hasn’t begun at the scheduled starting time.
With South London experiencing torrential rains this week, The Oval had developed multiple wet patches on the outfield, which meant that despite the sun being out and the breeze flowing to keep the rest of the field dry, the women’s game between Oval Invincibles and Trent Rockets couldn’t start on time and sadly had to be abandoned.
But even the men’s game between the two sides had no reprieve from the rain and wet patch as it also had a disappointingly delayed start. Even as the players went about their fielding drills close to the scheduled 6:30 PM (local) toss time, on-field umpires Nigel Llong and Nick Cook looked worried over the sogginess of an area that was near one of the edges of the playing square.
The Hundred on Sunday had both women’s and men’s game affected by rain.
Disappointed fans boo for the authorities after uninformed delay in The Hundred proceedings
That patch led to extensive discussions between the coaches and the captains with the umpires and it was decided that more time will be given to the ground staff to dry up the area before one inspection is held at 6:45 PM and other an hour later.
Amidst all this, however, fans, who were keenly anticipating the game, had no idea why the game isn’t taking place. In frustration over lack of communication at the ground, be it from the public addressing system or the giant screen that usually displays necessary information on such occasions, the crowd started booing and slow-clapping.
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ESPNcricinfo quoted readers saying that fans had “absolutely no communication” from the ECB or the ground authorities, which led to a lot of them leaving the stadium early with their families after having spent an elongated afternoon watching nothing.
Even Heather Knight, the England women’s team captain, expressed her displeasure about the same.
“I’m very surprised that nothing has happened and that there’s been no communication – or very little communication – to the crowd as to why that’s been the case,” Knight, a prominent figure in world cricket, was quoted as saying from the BBC Radio’s coverage.
“It’s the same with anything: if you don’t understand why something has happened and you’re frustrated by it, you sometimes just turn away and think that’s not for me.”
“That’s exactly what we don’t need in cricket and exactly what the Hundred isn’t designed to do. It’s designed to do the opposite, to bring new people into the game, and if they don’t understand things and don’t understand why and are frustrated by what seems to be a mad situation, they’re likely to turn away,” she added.
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The men’s game did finally start at 10:25 PM local time in a rain-marred 65-balls per side version, but by then a lot of the crowd at The Oval had left the stadium and weren’t there to enjoy the thrilling encounter that followed. But stand-out performer Jason Roy said the match was still played in far from ideal playing conditions, as he mentioned it was “ridiculously wet” still.
“Even now, when we were fielding there, I had one where I completely slipped over and I was soaked. The groundstaff did an incredible job just to get us on the field,” ESPNcricinfo quoted him saying further.
“There probably wasn’t a huge change from when we went on and when we were due to start but the umpires didn’t think that way, so we had to wait and be patient. I don’t think there was a huge amount of change. They changed the boundary size but the outifled was still pretty well. We just had to get on with it.”
The umpires, who had opted to bring one boundary in by 10 yards to ensure the match can be held, were the unfortunate ones to be at the receiving end of the crowd’s angst despite best of efforts during their two inspections.
However, it must be said, had one of them or some on-ground official made it a point to keep the crowd in the loop about the details around the delay, much of the confusion could’ve been avoided.
The only respite for the crowds was the 50% refund that they were given for their tickets. But if The Hundred wants to uphold its fans as the ultimate priority, transparency on such instances should be paramount.