A panoramic view of the Oval county ground showing the condition of the pitch and the outfield. (PTI Photo)
INDIA HAVE started another high-profile Test tour on a “dry and barren” note with their four-day warm-up game against Essex reduced by a day owing to the heat wave in the United Kingdom. This means the visitors will leave for Birmingham—the venue for the first Test—a day earlier.
The pitch set to be used for the match at the Cloudfm County Ground in Chelmsford is reported to be “lush green”, which is in contrast to the more arid look to the rest of the outfield. This is said to be an outcome of the heatwave that’s swept England this summer with Tuesday incidentally recorded by the Met department as the “hottest day of the year” in the United Kingdom. The significantly tepid rainfall across the country hasn’t helped matters either.
It is rather reminiscent of the draught conditions that the Indians had to encounter in Cape Town, their first stop on the Test tour of South Africa, at the start of the year. Though they haven’t been asked to “time their baths” yet—unlike in Cape Town—some water companies in other parts of England like Southern Water are learnt to have asked their customers to limit their showers to four minutes. They have also been asked to use their taps only for cooking, drinking and washing with a Hosepipe Ban set to be imposed in certain sections of the country like in the Northwest by August 5. The ban is learnt to be “watertight”, literally, with offenders facing prosecution and fines up to 1000 GBP.
Tuesday was the Indian Test team’s first official practice session in the build-up to the five-match series. And according to the PTI report, one of the two net pitches provided to the visitors was the same colour as the outfield. The other was greener than the match wicket itself. The vagaries of the ground conditions didn’t however stop the Indians from engaging in a lengthy practice session though the decision to shorten the duration of the match and leave for Birmingham early was taken by afternoon. The development was made official following a statement by the BCCI and a release from Essex Cricket.
“Essex Cricket and the England & Wales Cricket Board have today agreed, at the request of the BCCI Management Team, that the scheduled Tourist match between Essex and India will now be played over three days. As a result of India’s five Test series against England during August and September, and the current high temperatures, the match will now take place on Wednesday 25 – Friday 27 July,” the release read.
While there was no official account from the Essex groundstaff, longstanding head groundsman Stuart Kerrison had spoken some three weeks ago about the challenges of dealing with “one of the driest spells he can remember” in his 34-year-long career at the club. “We’ve only had half a millimetre of rain in the last five weeks, whereas we’ve had 100ml of water evaporate out of the ground. I’ve had a look back through my records and this is the least amount of rain we’ve ever had in a month,” he’d said.
“It really has been ridiculously hot. I might put a sprinkler on for seven hours overnight, but within two hours it is dry again. The pitches are tending to get slower and starting to crack,” he’d added.
Kerrison had also drawn comparisons with how two Essex cricketers had gone to Cape Town last year to play club cricket, and instead ended up with a “two-month holiday” because of the drought. The Indians could definitely relate to those comparisons.
The Hosepipe Ban is not expected to spread across the nation as of now, with the decision to impose it left to the water companies. Birmingham for one isn’t learnt to have been as severely affected as some other regions by the inclement weather. In fact, one local informed this paper that his lawn had “never been greener”. As ironic as it sounds, that might just be what the Indian team want to hear at the moment.
Feeling the English heat
The heatwave: On June 21, the mercury touched 34.5 degrees Celsius in London, which brought in the hottest June day in 40 years in Britain. On Tuesday, the maximum temperature recorded was 31 degrees Celsius, which, according to the local Met office could rise to 33 degrees Celsius on Thursday.
Taps running dry: By June end, Severn Trent, on the UK’s biggest water firms, had said, according to a BBC report, homes in Shropshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire were temporarily without water, with demand exceeding supply. United Utilities thought about bringing in a hosepipe ban. The heatwave continued and according to reports, the United Utilities might impose a ban from August 5.
India’s original plan: Ahead of the five-Test series that commences at Edgbaston on August 1, India had only one tour game lined up, the match against Essex, which was supposed to be a four-day affair, shorn of first-class status. Now India will travel to Edgbaston a day earlier, on Saturday, to start their preparations for the Test series.
Loss for essex: The statement from the Essex Cricket spoke about a “full refund” for the spectators who purchased tickets for the final day’s play. Essex reportedly had sold around 2,000 tickets for Saturday’s play.