da bet7k： Hampshire’s big day was ruined when umpires Trevor Jesty and John Holderdecided it would be impossible to stage the first ever scheduled match attheir new £17 million ground at the Rose Bowl, West End
da pixbet： Andy Ford02-May-2001Hampshire’s big day was ruined when umpires Trevor Jesty and John Holderdecided it would be impossible to stage the first ever scheduled match attheir new £17 million ground at the Rose Bowl, West End.Jesty and Holder, both former Hampshire players, surveyed the pools of wateracross the new pitch and decided play in the Benson & Hedges Cup matchagainst Essex couldn’t go ahead some 90 minutes before the game was due tostart.Hampshire captain Robin Smith said: “There was never any chance. The waterhas got everywhere and it would have been impossible which is a great shamebecause this was due to be such a memorable occasion in Hampshire’shistory.”Around 200 spectators had made their way to the new ground but left as soonas the announcement of the abandonment was made.Hampshire chief executive Tony Baker said: “This is very sad becauseeverything had been geared to this first match but it has been typical ofour bad luck.”The whole project has been fraught with disappointment in one form oranother. We just hope that the pitch will have dried up by Friday when we’redue to play here again but with more rain forecast even that can’t beguaranteed.”I feel sorry for our groundsman Nigel Gray who has put in hundreds of hourswork on the new pitch but there was nothing he could have done and the storywould have been the same if we were still at Northlands Road.”Gray added: “There was never any real chance even if it had been a dry day.The wet weather has been awful and I have not been able to work on thesquare as much as I would have liked.”
