FIRST it was the heat, now it was the rain that conspired to frustrate the region's cricketers on Saturday.
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Rain forced the cancellation of most cricket at the weekend, but not all, meaning one of the Bendigo District Cricket Association's most contentious rules reared its head. And it's bound to again put on the agenda how to handle wet days.
Under the BDCA's new wet-weather rule introduced several years ago, it has effectively spoiled the round for eight teams in the first XI because just one of the five games - Strathfieldsaye v Golden Square at Tannery Lane - made a start.
With one game starting, all other first XI clashes must now be played as ordinary conditions matches next weekend in which the best hope of a result is usually a gentleman's declaration agreement pre-game between the captains.
The new wet-weather rule was introduced to encourage teams to do all they could on days like Saturday to try to get a start, but it had the opposite effect at the weekend.
All it did was force a flurry of phone calls around the grounds to determine the status of each match, with the captains knowing that if just one game got a start what the ramifications for the rest of the teams would be.
So what's the answer to the wet weather quandary?
The BDCA could consider a scenario of if three - that's the majority of matches - are abandoned because of rain, all play is called off in the grade that day.
I don't like that idea, for the simple fact that in using Saturday as an example, Strathfieldsaye and Golden Square players would have been denied a day of cricket, despite the conditions being playable.
Surely, the simplest scenario that will avoid the situation we're bound to see this Saturday with drawn matches is to simply revert back to non-scheduled one-day games if you don't get a start on day one.