THE on-going wet weather has forced the Bristol Youth Cricket League to take the unprecedented step of abandoning its championship play-offs.
The regulation programme has been so badly affected by the rain that officials have decided it is now impossible to complete games which bring together winners of each division to decide overall league champions at under-11, under-13, under-15 and under-17 age groups.
Instead, efforts are being focused on completing corresponding knockout competitions and encouraging clubs to fulfil as many group league matches as possible.
The league boasts just over 200 teams, from under-9s through to under-17s, which traditionally conclude the vast majority of their games before the start of school holidays. But an intense timetable has collapsed because more than 730 matches – around 65 per cent of the total scheduled to date – have been cancelled through relentless downpours.
In a letter to clubs, Jim Donaldson, the league's chairman, said: "We have reached this dramatic decision for a combination of reasons.
"We think that some managers have more or less given up out of frustration (or more likely just 'sunk without trace').
"In late April and early May, we had three complete weeks where not a single match was played due to the weather!
"That itself was going to take some clawing back, but since then we have had further weeks where only a tiny number of league matches have been played.
"Some teams have played no league matches at all so far ... we know of one match that was rearranged seven times before it was eventually played."
Talking to The Post, he added: "We've restructured the league once because of the weather and redrawn the cup schedule twice. Now we're on Plan D.
"We can't do anything about the weather.
"We've tried to react to it and tried to resurrect something to stop everything from sinking.
"We're making the best of a difficult situation, and the early response from clubs has been very supportive, saying things like 'good call' or 'it's the only thing you could have done'."
Fingers are now crossed that the weather will finally improve and enable progress to be made in completing games in all the cup competitions.
These, too, are also horrendously behind schedule with only three of 20 scheduled quarter-finals so far concluded.
Finals have been pushed back to mid August – dates and venues to be announced – to give teams the chance to stage knockout games and avoid the unpalatable prospect of bowl-outs or coin tosses to decide who goes through.
In the meantime, Donaldson is also hopeful that clubs will rearrange at least some of their league games to ensure competitive cricket for youngsters.
He added: "You've got to stay cheerful or you could become seriously depressed.
"I'm not sure what the answer is though it was 23 degrees in March!"
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