18 May 1999
Weather Woes at Canterbury
Trevor Chesterfield
CANTERBURY - If England's inhospitable month of May continues South
Africa, training up at Northampton for their second World Cup match
today, might be wondering if they are not playing Sri Lanka in Port
Elizabeth or some other miserable damp and cold spot south the
Overberg.
Then again perhaps the weather is a typically British underhand ploy
designed put off the other sides allowing them to win the trophy.
What with numbing fingers and frozen toes, you stumble around south
and east England following other the teams in Group A to get a "feel"
of the conditions as well as "good look" at the opposition.
Watching England play two matches in a row in conditions which can
only be described as arctic, although the locals call them "bracing
and ideal", is not being done for the enjoyment of watching England
play Kenya at Kent's picturesque St Lawrence ground yesterday.
Then that misty stuff they call drizzle, which had been falling for
about 40 minutes grew heavy enough to force a halt after 20 overs. And
no doubt umpires K T Francis and Rudi Koetzern were quiet happy to get
off as well. And this after play did not start until after noon
because of early rain and a wet outfield.
In the end, despite the icy conditions Nasser Hussain and Graeme Hick
scored impressive half centuries and provided enough batting
entertainment on a totally gloomy afternoon to steer England to a
comfortable nine wickets victory.
They added 159 for the second wicket against a Kenya bowling attack
handicapped by a wet ball with Hussain scoring 88 and Hick reaching
his second half century in succession. Not that Kenya were been a
pushover for England; they were well worth every run of their score of
203 after being invited to bat first. And we had a good look at Steve
Tikolo showing why he is a world class act. He batted with sensible,
if attacking flair and a touch of improvisation.
He drove Darren Gough stylishly and Mark Ealham also felt the broad
blade of his athletic willow during an innings of 71 of 107 balls with
eight fours. There were a couple of square and cover drives off Gough
and Ian Austin.
But their total of 203, however, was not going to be enough to put
their hosts under pressure. Just one shy of the Sri Lanka total at
Lord's last Friday, it did show that the Kenyans are becoming an
emerging force at limited-overs level.
There was also some beef at the bottom end of the innings where Thomas
Odoyo slapped 34 off 32 balls, which included a six off Alan Mullally
who did not look the same bowler yesterday. England's batting,
however, had just too much class for Kenya while England captain Alec
Stewart would do well to examine the theory of putting the opposition
into bat when they play South Africa at The Oval on Saturday
With so much rain about we had a delayed start to the game and batting
conditions were more ideal than those for bowling because of the wet
outfield making the ball greasy. South Africa meet Kenya, their
second African Group A rivals next week in Amstelveen, Amsterdam. And
on the evidence of what we saw yesterday neither England nor Kenya
should bother the tournament favourites.
As temperatures, promised by the met office to be 17C, plunged to
below 10C, the advisability of holding the tournament this time of
year should be seriously questioned although at the start most
spectators seemed to find the weather ideally "summery". Many were
wearing jackets and pullovers while there were those with sleeves
rolled up.
As a weak sun filtered through, we also had tongue in cheek
suggestions of South African "bias" with Port Elizabeth umpire Rudi
Koetzern not giving a decision when there was an almighty appeal for a
catch in the first overs of the Kenya innings.
Source :: Trevor Chesterfield