Warwickshire Pro40 game with Yorkshire a wash-out
WARWICKSHIRE’S wet, wet, wet season took another turn for the wetter last night when their Pro40 game with Yorkshire was washed out after just 23 minutes play.
Just six overs were possible in Leeds before the ubiquitous rain closed in yet again to truncate the floodlit fixture.
After total washouts of the last two championship days at Worcester and then last Sunday’s home Pro40 fixture with Essex, that is only six overs in the last four days’ cricket that the rain has permitted the Bears.
Last night, the glistening covers, drenched grass and deserted stands at Headingley provided an apt comment on the Pro40, both as a competition and where it stands in Warwickshire’s priorities.
The Bears have just one more fixture left in it this season, at Derby on Saturday, and, already well adrift from the promotion race, are destined to play in Division Two again next year.
That will be a strange situation as, with the competition to be disbanded at the end of next season, the usual incentives of finishing top and winning promotion do not apply.
So spectators could be in for a string of flat, meaningless contests. Or maybe not.
Bears coach Allan Donald, who will mourn the Pro40 not one jot, reckons it will provide a chance for the players to go out and express themselves with freedom.
“Next year it will be strange, almost like ‘what are we playing for?’” Donald said. “But for me it has always been a bit of a nonsense competition.
“I have always thought there are too many one-day competitions in England anyway. Pro40 for me is basically a dead duck.
“Next year, with us in Division Two, there could be an element of playing with a lot of freedom without worrying about promotion or relegation. I think we will probably deal with it that way.
“It will be a chance for the guys to go out there and really express themselves and we have got some talented guys who will relish that.
“There might be a case of throwing in some of the younger players and saying: ‘Go and enjoy yourselves’.
“But knowing Ash, he is a proud man, as I am, and we won’t want to just give games away.
“We will still have pride and passion and try and finish top of the division, simply because want Warwickshire to win anything we are involved in.”
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