Weather spoils annual clash of inter-city rivals

It is cruel that a season which has lifted cricket's profile to such a marked extent in New Zealand is being marred by the most abominable weather possible.

The latest victims have been Canterbury and Wellington who were scheduled to play one of their two annual State Shield matches today at Jade Stadium.

But while the CLEAR Black Caps, who are the singlemost factor in cricket's soaring profile, were dealing to Australia in Melbourne last evening, the bad weather that has bedevilled most New Zealand cities and towns in, what one hesitates to call summer, this period of the year, closed in and never let up all night and well into the morning.

In fact, at the stage the match umpires Dave Quested and Evan Watkin were considering their option, option because there was only one, it was still drizzling out in the middle of the Stadium.

The ground staff had paid some cursory attention towards attempting to take water off the ground, but no sooner were they mopping it up than it was seeping back and the outfield was sodden.

The losers were not only the players, but the Christchurch public who generally make the Wellington match one of the high-paying gates in an admittedly low return competition. It is traditional that when the New Zealand team is in Australia, the interest in the home competition always lifts, and with the team in winning mode, there is all the more attraction to cricket, especially after 11 months of the year seem to see the newspapers and electronic media dominated by rugby.

Both teams got to take two points out of the game, and that was sufficient to see Wellington cement its position at the top of the Shield ladder while Canterbury hangs onto third.

But given the downturn in Canterbury's form of late, they would have preferred to try out their options and try to get their performance levels back up.

The decision to call the game off proved the wise one as rain rolled in again during mid-afternoon in a way that would have made useless all the efforts to get the ground ready.