The summer game · Essay
The Long Game Begins When the Rain Comes
A wet afternoon at a county ground makes the case for the sport’s most unfashionable virtue: staying put.
At half past two in Worcester, the covers were still on and the pavilion clock had stopped being useful. Nobody left. We watched rain collect in the ropes, traded scorecards, and waited for the ground staff to make their patient circuit of the square.
Patience is not empty time
Modern sport has trained us to demand a result before supper. Cricket asks for a different bargain: attend to the intervals. When play resumed at four, sixteen overs mattered more because the afternoon had first taught us how much of the game is made in its silences.