Cricket over Easter
The Easter long weekend (Good Friday to Easter Monday, April 3rd to 6th, inclusive) this year coincided with the first round of matches in the County Championship. It doesn’t seem very long since the last season finished! I haven’t followed cricket very closely since I moved to Ireland, but I do look on the internet from time to time to see how Glamorgan are getting on. I follow them because I live in Cardiff. Glamorgan were promoted from Division 2 to Division 1 last season and at the time I wrote that I wouldn’t bet against them getting relegated so it was with some trepidation that I checked the scores on the first day of their first match against Yorkshire at Sophia Gardens.
As it happened, the weather was very bad in Cardiff on Good Friday and play started very late. When it did get going (in the late afternoon), the playing conditions were evidently very helpful for the bowlers, and Glamorgan slumped to 28-4 with a batting disaster on the cards. After that. though, they recovered well, though slowly, amid various interruptions for rain and bad light, to reach a respectable score of 302. Things looked even better when they bowled out the opposition for 226 for a first-innings lead of 76. They had a chance of forcing a victory on the last day, after a bold declaration before lunch, but didn’t have enough overs to bowl Yorkshire out for the second time – I think the batting conditions had probably improved over the four days – and the match was drawn. I think this was not a bad outcome given the position they were in on Day 1.
Looking at the County Championship Table I realised that scoring system has changed. It is still 16 points for a win, but it used to be 8 points each for a tied match and only 5 each for a draw. Now it’s 8 points for either a draw or a tie, so it is back to being a zero-sum game (in some sense). I see that change was made back in 2021!
I was also initially surprised to see Glamorgan given only 1 batting bonus point despite scoring 302, but then I remembered that bonus points are only given for the first 110 overs of the first innings and Glamorgan had not reached 300 after that number of overs. The same reasoning also denied Yorkshire a bowling point, actually.
I admit however that I haven’t figured the rules for adding on time at the end of a day when play has been lost to the weather. I thought only a maximum of 30 minutes could be added in the County Championship on the first 3 days: with a scheduled close of play at 6pm, that would mean delaying the close to 6.30pm. Last night – i.e the end of Day 3 – play went on until well past 7pm. I suppose the umpires have discretion to carry over more of the deficit if the 30 minutes per day is not sufficient. In all, 61 overs were lost in this match anyway, despite the time added.
In the Dark 
April 6, 2026 at 8:55 pm
I thought that the timings of the intervals and of close of play following rain were determined by a combination of the number of letters in the month, the phase of the moon and the tossing of a coin.
Lancashire should have won but didn’t, and ultimately didn’t deserve to. Not that that pleases me.
April 8, 2026 at 6:10 am
Any play lost on the first day (or later days) can be made up for with up to 8 overs added to play on days 2 and 3 (making the day up to 104 overs in length. There’s no time limit like in Tests, and the normal 96 overs often take up to 6.30pm and beyond, so it’s not unusual to go past 7pm if the overs are added.
It does seem that this year you can now add up to 8 overs on day 1 as well, as that seemed to happen on the 1st day of this game (play went on to 6.50pm and there were 36 overs starting at 4.15pm, implying 6.30 was the scheduled finish)
April 8, 2026 at 10:03 am
I was at the shortened day 1, almost all of day 2, and the first 3 hours of day 3. Some quite blustery conditions, though not too bad if you were sitting in the sunshine (when the Sun was out!). A quite positive performance from Glamorgan on their return to Division One.
April 8, 2026 at 10:04 am
That’s the 8th hundred I’ve seen Ingram make for Glamorgan, and I can’t remember seeing anyone else get more than 3! (and I only see Glamorgan for about 5 days a year on average!). The last 3 have all come in 4-day games in darkest April. He and Kellaway always bat very positively together. In fact the one criticism I’d make of Glamorgan is that scoring rate was quite slow, much lower than Yorkshire’s. You say Glamorgan’s innings was interrupted by rain and bad light, but I don’t remember it was (once it started!). They just took 4 sessions to get 300 runs in 120 overs. And the pitch didn’t hold too many terrors after the first hour, though did take a lot of spin on days 3 and 4.
But their declaration and their bowling was more positive. If there ever was a time for Mason Crane to get into the England team as chief spinner it’s now. And the Australian Ryan Hadley took 6 wickets and looks promising, though he’s going to have to shorten his run up or he’ll get tired