‘I’m English,’ says the comedian Bill Bailey by way of introduction. ‘Thus I am conditioned to a life just short of pleasure.’ Thus today’s tidings from Edgbaston. A capacity crowd on a Test match Saturday at England’s jolliest venue, with the home team on top, already 1-0 up in the series? Rain was inevitable.
Not just any old rain either, but the Sir Alec Bedser of rain: consistent, tireless, unrelenting. Rain so copious that water began reappearing on the ground from the brimming water table, the mobile Blotters spouting bow waves as they ploughed back and forth.
Patrons, nonetheless, remained in a remarkably hearty humour, lubricated by the various liquor outlets, sustained by a sense of shared ridiculousness. While the guests in their hospitality suites were grimly tuned in to golf tournaments and horseracing from other, sunnier climes, the punters outside remained in considerable numbers, even after the official abandonment at 2.40 p.m.
Songs were sung and impromptu entertainments conceived. Bob Willis and Jason Gillespie teamed up for a well-attended Q & A in the Vodafone enclosure, while Mike Gatting pulled pints of Marston’s in the beer marquee. Andrew Flintoff wandered across the ground, sandshoes lapped by puddles, inviting photographs of Freddie walking on water. An air of village fair prevailed. There was even a game of cricket where batsmen dressed as Elvis and the Queen were surrounded by the Incredibles. They formed— what else?—an umbrella field.
One could, at a pinch, regard it as history being made: not for more than a decade had a day of Ashes cricket been surrendered entirely to rain. One could also see it as a comment on the peculiar nature of Test match time: the score was unchanged, but the game’s dynamics irrevocably were.
England, comfortably ahead, have been outflanked by the elements—as, in fact, was always possible. With five sessions already lost, and further rain forecast for Monday, their seven for 77 before lunch yesterday looks like becoming a pleasingly symmetrical statistic rather than a match-winning performance. The proximity of the Rea to the Hollies Stand slows the drying of the ground here, and groundsman Steve Rouse will be hard-pressed to ready Edgbaston for a timely continuation. This looks like a Test match destined to finish just short of completion.