Rain Making Cricket Season One To 'Forget'

The start of cricket season has been the "wettest to start a season since records began" and two sodden England-West Indies series have made it "a summer to forget," according to Vic Marks of the London GUARDIAN's The Sport Blog. Half the cricket season has passed and "the chances of being able to pluck out this so-called summer as one to savour remain low." Around the counties "it feels like a battle for survival against the distractions" including Euro 2012 and the Olympics. But mostly, it has been "a battle against the weather." County chief executives "look in anguish at the skies like grumpy old farmers." There is much "jet-set talk of City T20s," even though the current success stories are "often in the less urban centres" of Chelmsford, Hove, Worcester and Taunton. Surely, "more than wishful thinking is required to provide a viable economic model" (GUARDIAN, 6/30).