So England have taken India to a 5th and final day of the 3rd Test. We've known since about tea on Day 2 that India were going to win this match but at least England turned up and fought today. Jos Buttler made his maiden Test hundred and Ben Stokes a gritty 50 as those 2 halted India's progress for over 3 hours. Despite a a flurry of wickets after Butler was out, England's tail kept on fighting with last pair Rashid and Anderson lasting over 30mins to frustrate Kohli and make India come back on Wednesday morning to finish the job. I'd like to think that this was a bit of a Dunkirk moment for this team. A victory found within a defeat. Let's hope Joe Root gave an inspiring Churchill like speech - "We'll fight them in Southampton, we'll fight them at The Oval ............"
Rather than write a straight cricketing article on this dead rubber, I thought I would look back on some of the strangest delays and interruptions that have befallen sporting events around the globe. Might there still be hope for England? How many of these random acts of God, force majeure or just plain stupidity would need to befall Trent Bridge, the players and officials for England to come away with a draw from this game?
Weather
Let's get the obvious one out of the way. It's cricket and it's "summer" in England so the best chance that any side has of saving a Test match on the last day with just 1 wicket in hand is for the heavens to open at about 11am and for it to continue to pour down until about 6pm. The bad news for England supporters is tomorrow's forecast gives less than 5% chance of receiving any rain let alone the kind of biblical deluge that would be required to escape Trent Bridge with the 2-0 lead intact.
But maybe we're focusing too much on just rain being our saviour, what about snow? It wouldn't be the 1st time that cricket in this country has been delayed due to blizzard like conditions. In fact the last time play was stopped for snow was in April 2016 when Middlesex were playing Durham. Granted that was just a flutter and in early season conditions but stranger things have happened. Take for example a match between Derbyshire and Lancashire in June of 1975. The game started on a Saturday with reports that many of the crowd were shirtless and enjoying ice-creams as a result of fine weather. They were also treated to a fluent century from West Indian Clive Lloyd who a month later would go onto to lift the inaugural World Cup, also played in England. However, as Lancashire looked to complete their victory on the following Monday, the game was stopped first for rain, then for hail and finally for snow, with almost 6 inches of the white stuff falling despite it being mid-summer.
Beyond cricket, i've found reports of lightening halting games of NFL and dust storms bringing a premature end to Football matches. Can the weather Gods deliver something similar for England tomorrow?
Four legged friends
I'm not quite sure how diverse the fauna of Nottingham is. I've seen Robin Hood and I don't believe there is any mention of the infamous outlaw having any monkeys as members of his band of merry men but I'm happy to stand corrected. Of course in the more tropical parts of the world are simian cousins are regular spectators and occasional trouble makers at cricket games as England found to their peril in Ahmedabad, 2012.
Of course that didn't cause a major delay in the game but perhaps if Nottingham zoo suffers some kind of mass break out then the match can be stopped for longer on account of swarms, herds and flocks of various animals entering the playing arena just like below.
Comical evacuations
With security heightened and modern day stadiums all about health and safety, it's not surprising that just occasionally the emergency services and ground security get a little too eager to stop a match due to a perceived threat.
We've all been there, it's another weekday morning, you're blurry eyed and semi-conscious and yet as usual late for work again. As such you're forced to try and multitask in order to get out the door on time. You end up with your shirt buttons not matching, hair like a porcupine and of course toast that resembles charcoal more than bread. The fire alarm goes off and you wake up the rest of your sleeping housemates/family. Now imagine that you're an International cricketer and burning the toast in the dressing room results in the deployment of several fire trucks, the evacuation of an entire stand and over a 30minute delay to the match you are playing in - embarrassing hey! That is precisely what happened to Australian spinner Nathan Lyon in 2017 during a Sheffield Shield game in Queensland. I can just picture him now desperately opening a window while waving a tea towel.
Brain Dead Officials & Lack of Equipment
Refs, umpires and match officials get a tough time of it in almost any sport these days but it would be fair to say that sometimes they do bring it on themselves. Turning up with the proper equipment for everyone to start the game on time should really be one of the easier things to get right in professional sport but it hasn't always turned out that way.
It'd certainly aid England's cause tomorrow if the umpires failed to provide India with a ball in the same manner as happened below.
Or how about if they only had access to one set of stumps? The delay below was during the 1997-98 Champions League Semi-Final between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund. Excitable Madrid fans had earlier climbed the fences and hung off the goal. The match started over an hour late as officials scampered around Madrid looking for another regulation set of posts.
Living in perpetual hope is of course all that an English sports fan can do. So let's keep our fingers crossed and see what happens in tomorrow's game. You never know...........
Comments