It may not be long before "snow stopped play" becomes a more familiar cricket hazard than in the past
Combine the quixotic decision to start the domestic first-class cricket season in late March with this week's wintry forecast for the northern counties in early April and it may not be long before "snow stopped play" becomes a more familiar cricket hazard than in the past. Cricket famously revels in such quirks, of course, but snowfall and cricket are not strangers. In 1888 it snowed in July, while in 1975 snow in June stopped county matches in Buxton (where Clive Lloyd and Farokh Engineer had a snowball fight) and Colchester. This was also the occasion when John Arlott wrote in this paper that snow had even fallen at Lord's during a game between Middlesex and Surrey, a report which triggered a complaint to the Press Council, which eventually found in the Guardian's favour. These days, social media might settle such disputes more quickly, providing that anyone was eccentric enough to be watching at the time, of course.