Cambridgeshire cricket club admits climate change issue tough to overcome
Clubs in parts of the country have called for a delayed start to the season
A Cambridgeshire cricket club believes dealing with the effects of climate change is always a challenge.
Clubs in other parts of the country have called for delays to the start of the season due to the impact of heavy rainfall in recent months, caused by the likes of Storm Babet.
Last year, a report by the British Association for Sustainable Sport (BASIS) found in a YouGov poll of around 2,000 sports participants and fans in the UK, 60% of cricketers and spectators said climate change had caused disruption, compared to 40% for football.
"We've always struggled early on in the season"
Chatteris Cricket Club are gearing up to start their CCA Senior League Division Two campaign in two weeks' time.
Ant Palmer is the club chairman:
"We have always struggled early on in the season to be able to get machinery onto the ground because it stayed so wet for so long, and historically, early May is not a great time for us," he said.
"I remember previous years at Chatteris (during dry weather) we had large, dangerous cracks in the outfield and we had to make the boundary shorter because it was unsafe to play on.
"But we haven't got the facilities to water the entire outfield."
Climate change could see participation drop
In its report, BASIS recommended measures to help grassroots sports clubs manage the effects of climate change, such as making more government funding available and co-operation amongst sports' governing bodies on tackling the issue.
But there are worries less people will be encouraged to play cricket because of changing conditions.
"Unfortunately I think what you might see is the sport will continue to struggle because it's so dictated by the weather and if the weather is unpredictable, people are less likely to want to take up the sport," Ant added.
"The sport will continue to cope but I think cricket, year on year, seems to be getting more and more difficult for local clubs to be able to survive in many aspects other than just climate change."