Message Board - Cricket: wet wicket

Just had a look at our wicket and it is very wet an ideas of how to dry a wicket.. a part from good old mother nature

If you haven't got a waterhog, brush off standing water gently then use blankets to soak up excess. Two people can wring them out and reuse. Sawdust or loam in the slippery ends. Just off to look at the damage with us, it will take all morning methinks.

Left it , Friday, to 3 first teamers and a lot of youngsters to put on the covers last night after a cricket school.
Yep, not done correctly and water on a length at both ends!
Nowt else to say really. They have started and I've come away to my daughter's 30Th birthday. Whoever won the toss wins the game , I guess.

Yep all morning mopping up, the umps were very good as there were still splashy points on the square though the deck was just SOFT and dryish plasticeine, what is known locally as a Caton Shirtfront. All the effort was in vain as we lost, game was 240-19. Not great entertainment seeing as it was seaming all over the place and we'd done our utmost to get it on against a not particularly friendly yappy side and it took a full 90 overs to reach a conclusion. Umpires did get involved on occasions because of the oppo attitude. Had better days. Hmm.

Not an easy week down here. Never thought I would get a game on. But used mobiles all week plus every available piece of tarpaulin I had and with the help of our extremely keen first team skipper, they started an important match only twenty minutes late. Won by nine wickets and secured our position in div one again for next year.

Yesterday our 2s won the toss and LOST!
Today has seen massive showers and the local Midweek League finals are on. Tomorrow is a first team game on what is going to be a wet pitch and no doubt about it they will moan that should have kept it dry.

The weather forecasts (I've checked a few of 'em) do not match the reality though and I find coping with this awful rain very wearing. So glad this is my last season !!!

Dreadful day.

Yesterday there were definitely several villages missing their idiots ... they were all at our ground playing for the opposition.

Rain won ...

Thank God the Bank Holiday Weekend is over, I'me p..sed off with putting on and removing the covers and sheets and pushing the Bowdry up and down. Managed to complete all three fixtures although they have made quite a mess, as well as the covers and water removal I managed to cut the square and outfield prior to each match so the presentation of the ground was as good as possible. Not a finger lifted to help or a word spoken in appreciation by any of the players or committee members
Peter

TBF all i have done for the last 2 months is cover the pitch on a weekly basis apart from 2 weeks of fine weather here in Lancs
!!!! oh how i would love to live in the south.

It is just as same down south mate.

I have heard of some antipodean using what I'm sure was hots coals,(BBQ?) I'm presuming on a flat metal shovel to help dry out a pitch. I'm sure in was 'dunfermline'. ?

Presume it'd be like a bedpan, that give the players something to talk about !

I've never tried it, but it sounds like it might work ?

Yep, another cr@p weekend in a cr@p summer. Spent half the day clearing up sawdust and repairing skid marks on square.

Barry, were the loos being refurbed or did someone lose the keys to the pavilion ROFL

Oh yes, as soon as I posted that I knew some "smarta@rse" (get it) would be straight on it

Why then, not edit and delete it.

Er Tony, perhaps cos it's not that important and just a bit of fun?

LOL I just love groundsmen.

I'd lost it over the weekend. We were playing a team that was 24 points in front of us. We are 2nd from bottom facing the drop ( 2 go down ) and they are 4th from bottom.

They were batting and we came off for rain. The rain had leaked under the cover for the first 12 inches from the edge on one side. Bowdried up within seconds. If the ball pitched here It would have been a wide. They didn't want to play. Umpires were from the local Eunuch society.

I may have used the term ... " ... get in your cars and **** off ". Always been good at diplomacy.

One of our more mature spectators ( see ... told you I was good at diplomacy ) wandered onto the square to see why we weren't playing ( players and umps doing the usual tapping feet on ground ). He was wearing moleskin trousers and a woolly jumper ... he couldn't have looked more like a groundsman.

Umpire announced " here's the groundsman ... he'll tell us what he thinks "

I quietly ( that's a lie ) told the umps that the groundsman had been standing in front of him for the last 20 minutes telling him that the pitch was fit.

I actually one player say on Saturday" it's a bit soft ".
Like his brain.
Just managed to cut the outfield for the first time since early last week, I've never seen the outfield here covered in worm casts in august in twelve years.

Barry,

Same here, worms became very active over the weekend. Perhaps, they travelled from you place to mine!

So bad will probably spray very soon..

Worms, tell me about them. I actually dragmatted the square this afternoon to smear them in they aren't even drying. This is a square I have sprayed twice in the last month. I counted approximately 5-9 casts per square foot on the outfield. This equates to about, and it's only a rough guess, 1,500,000 casts on the field. Interestingly they're all small and very 'thin.' Major hatch of baby worms?