How a brief shower became a long delay

A day after India made grand celebrations of their 500th Test, there were potentially embarrassing scenes of the ground staff just standing on the covers in the bright sunshine and not knowing what to do. An hour-long spell of rain, which began as a fine drizzle for the first 10 minutes and was an even finer drizzle in the last 10 minutes, ended up washing out the final session. It began to drizzle just as the players walked off for tea at 2.10pm, and the ground staff was out on the covers at 3.10pm. At an inspection at 3.50pm, the umpires asked the curator how long it would take to get the ground ready. When he asked for another hour and a quarter, the day’s play was called off.

These two teams have been witness to much worse in their recent Tests in the West Indies and South Africa, but the spectators were left wondering why the ground staff didn’t even try to get the covers off in a hurry. On the surface the whole process looked really inefficient and amateurish, not to mention inexperienced.

However, leeway has to be made for the facts of this case too. Green Park is an old ground owned by the …

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