"Undeniable" climate change sparks fears over future of club cricket fixture windows

Leagues forced to postpone start of 2024 season due to "unprecedented rainfall"

The "undeniable" effect of climate change has sparked calls for a debate on the future of club cricket fixture windows after leagues were forced to postpone the start of the 2024 season.

Inclement weather in recent months has meant many sides have been unable to prepare their grounds as usual for the forthcoming summer, while a number of clubs across the country were also devastated by flooding during the winter.

In Lancashire, the Palace Shield, which is centred around the Preston area, has now voted to postpone the start of the season by a week until Saturday, April 27th, due to "unprecedented rainfall" in recent months.

The neighbouring North West Cricket League, created in 2022 from the merger of the Bolton Cricket League and Ribblesdale Cricket League, has also announced to its 32 member clubs that their scheduled start on Saturday, April 20th, will be delayed.

Fylde CC, based in Poulton-le-Fylde, near Blackpool, raised the issue of a potential postponement to the start of the Palace Shield season with fellow league members last week. A "clear majority" of the 54 clubs subsequently voted in favour of the plan.

Fylde chairman Keith Moore told The Cricketer: "You'd usually be trying to roll in mid to late February, but you couldn’t get a roller near the square at the moment because it gets stuck a metre out of the shed.

"It’s now becoming a real concern, not just because we might lose a few games of cricket but now we have to do more indoor training, which is costly.

"It also removes our income streams because when we have junior training here on a Friday night the place is mobbed.

"There is definitely a shift towards ending up with better weather in September than we do in April. Maybe it is a sign of things to come.

"There might well just be a shorter window to play in each year. The climate change element is pretty undeniable now."

Club cricketers: Which ground can't you wait to play at this summer?

^{The impact of poor weather is also being keenly felt in the county game, especially at Worcestershire}

When considering postponements, knock-on effects on other leagues – the Palace Shield is a feeder league to the Northern Premier Cricket League – also have to be factored in.

For example, Morecambe CC's 1st XI play in the Palace Shield while also fielding teams in the Westmorland Cricket League system, which plays some fixtures on Sundays, meaning the potential number of alternative dates on which games can be played is squeezed if an extension to the season cannot be accommodated.

The same issue has also been raised by the Two Counties Cricket Championship, which covers Essex and Suffolk.

The Two Counties league is not currently considering postponing the start of its season, which is set to begin on Saturday, April 20th.

However, as one of three feeder leagues to the East Anglian Premier League, it is already constrained by how flexible it can be anyway.

Due to a number of the league’s members sharing pitches with football clubs, negotiations around changing fixture windows are made even trickier because they would likely need to involve the Football Association and other governing bodies too.

Two Counties Cricket Championship chair Jeremy Jayasuriya said: "If this is going to be a continuing pattern then we will have to have a fairly long conversation with the [East Anglian] Premier League and other feeder leagues involved – and potentially the FA – in terms of how we accommodate the season.

"It wouldn’t hurt, in my view, for the ECB and grassroots people to open a conversation on it. I can't say it's the same for all parts of the country and I don't think a top-down approach is necessarily the way forward, but a collaborative approach wouldn't hurt.

"I certainly think a debate is needed because the mood music from climate scientists is this is not going to alter direction."

The impact of flooding is also being felt in the county game, where Worcestershire chief executive Ashley Giles recently admitted the club may have to move away from New Road due to regular risks now being posed by the neighbouring River Severn.

The club subsequently moved the first two County Championship home matches of the season to Kidderminster due to the flooding in Worcester.

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