COVERED WINTER 2020

COVERED 30 TRENTBRIDGE.CO.UK With the most disrupted cricketing season in recent memory now at a close, Club Historian Peter Wynne-Thomas looks at how the nation’s summer sport has dealt with changes to its schedule in the past. STORY BY Peter Wynne-Thomas When I returned to school in September 1944, a large notice board had been fixed to the form room wall. On it was a detailed map of Europe and a line of steel pins through Northern France. D Day had occurred in June. Everyone hoped the end of the war would follow in the next six months.The press had reported a meeting at Lord’s the previous winter, when the delegates – Notts repre- sented by Capt Brown and George Heane – declared the County Championship would resume as soon as practical after hostilities had ceased. The championship would be on a regional basis because, with petrol rationing, travel was difficult.The delegates also envisaged a county knock-out competition! That swot Borrington, teacher’s pet, volunteered to read the newspaper each day and move the line of pins as reported (papers printed a map showing the latest state of the front line most days). As an avid, cricket mad ten-year-old, I had seen the plans for a post-war cricket cham- pionship and in my little mind, whether First-Class cricket resumed in 1945 all depended on Borrington and his line of pins. I should explain that I attended a boarding school, well sheltered from outside happen- ings – save for the odd doodle-bug which tootled over on its way to London. The County Championship had been absent for five whole summers, from 1940 to 1944. In fact, even in 1939 a handful of matches had been cancelled and theWest Indian touring side of that summer had to leave early to catch a boat home. During those five blank years, Nottingham- shire were the only county to arrange matches every year.These were mainly one-day games on a Saturday against service CRICKET & DISRUPTION