You know how it works. In the week leading up to the game you’ve been on the BBC weather website even more times than you’ve imagined yourself winning the game almost on your own. With every change in the weather forecast your emotions swing wildly. Every ray of sun that appears as a little icon is just cause for a ticker tape parade. Every black cloud or spot of rain nearly results in a quick call to an anonymous help-line. You know that the weather forecast is by and large made up by meteorologists with too much time on their hands justifying their employment by whatever means they can but it still wont stop the fretting. What’s worse than a free Saturday in summer?

Onto the game,

On arriving at the ground and finding it either threatening rain or actually raining there are a couple of key things you’ve gotta do. Most of your day will revolve around the weather and so it’s a great idea to
find out where it comes from. This can be done in a few different ways. One way is to indulge in some chatter with the opposing team, preferably their groundsman. If however it’s a team you don’t like very
much simply observing the direction in which most of their players appear to be gazing could work if you’re prepared to put the time into it. Finally failing the above rely on the fact that in general in the UK, especially in East Anglia the prevailing wind is generally from the south west.

How do I find the south west I hear you worry. Well don’t! Find the south, then the west and conveniently you’ll find that if you construct an angle bisector of the two lines you will have a line pointing due south west. Alternatively bring a compass.

If you’ve got no compass and aren’t really into your construction then there is one final option. In this fine country we are not in the tropics, we are north of them. And hence the sun which is over the tropics is south of us. In fact daylight saving is your friend here. At 1 O’clock BST it is precisely 12 midday GMT. Our close proximity in East Anglia to the Greenwich meridian means that at this time the sun should be due south. Next as you’re all aware, the sun moves west, so whilst taking careful notes of the position of the sun (without looking directly at it) you should be able to work out to a reasonable degree of accuracy where south west is.

If you can’t work out where the sun is for clouds then it’s probably about to rain and your game will be called off anyway.

Be warned though that if you are one of my many Australian readers then the patented way for finding south west will actually result in you finding north west and if you are a reader in the tropics you’ll have
to vary your method depending on the time of year – probably better just to buy a compass in fact. I’m also not an expert on the prevailing wind of your locality as it really varies depending on where your locality is and you know that better than me.

If after all this your game does actually start it’s of course vital to focus on the game of cricket rather than the weather. You are but a pawn in the game of ‘weather’ yet a king in the game of cricket. Even if you’re not actually a king in the world of cricket.

If rain stops play at any point be sure to gaze carefully and thoughtfully into the south western sky. Even if its torrential make sure you take up a suitable vantage point at least once every half hour. Feel free to stop these regular observations if the umpire calls off the game but you might just find that there’s something missing from your life without them.

Happy Meteorology,

One fa.