RAIN, RAIN...

“Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”
~Susan Ertz (1894 – 11 April 1985) British fiction writer and novelist

It was not just the primary producers and our drought stricken dams that needed copious quantities of rain over last weekend.

Facing a rather difficult run chase, I spent all Saturday evening pondering the permutations of how our run chase would unfold for there to be a happy outcome for the Yarras Fifth Eleven.

That annoying beast logic kept rearing its ugly head and was cause for many negative alternative outcomes to my almost blinkered belief that somehow we would negotiate this very difficult assignment.

As it started to rain late on Saturday night I started having flashbacks to the rain effected pitch that we encountered against Maccabi only a couple of weeks before. "Just great" I thought to myself. "We have a difficult run chase as it is and now we will be confronted with a blasted green top pitch to further contend with".

I slept uneasily during that Saturday night with dreams of a heroic match winning innings being thwarted by waking every now again to the sounds of extremely heavy rain pelting down outside.

Never once did I countenance the possibility of the game being washed out.

Early on Sunday morning as I was still half in the world of sleep and half conscious - I heard my mobile phone quiver signalling a text message had just come through. I picked up my mobile thinking that perhaps Rakish needed a lift again to the ground. When I looked at the message, it was from Strachany and it simply stated that all MCA matches had been declared washed out for the weekend.

"Hooray!" I thought to myself - I can go back to sleep. And that pretty much summed up a large portion of my Sunday. It was dark and gloomy outside with constant heavy rain falling - so sitting in bed when I finally awoke seemed like a good thing.

As a result, we escaped with a draw - though if I maintain the positivity, perhaps we were denied a famous victory. Who knows?

Anyway, it is now three weeks since I last had a bat under match conditions and that was something not worth cheering about from teh relative comfort of my bed.

This week we play a one day game against top placed team National at Fawkner Park - a venue I have been looking forward to playing at all season due in no small part to its wonderful Oak and Elm trees and sporting boundaries.

It is one of the most picturesque grounds in Melbourne.

More next week!

Vic Nicholas

Melbourne

AUSTRALIA