By Marcus Uhe
In what is becoming an annual tradition across Melbourne, the opening round of cricket season has been thwarted by Mother Nature once again.
For the fourth consecutive season, the pent-up energy, testosterone and eagerness of Dandenong District Cricket Association (DDCA) Turf cricketers has been suppressed for the first weekend of October with the league citing ‘the State of many grounds in the City of Greater Dandenong and City of Casey.
The DDCA made the decision on Wednesday, 2 October that no Turf cricket will be played over the weekend and formally communicated with clubs on Thursday morning, 3 October.
Putting the stumps in and getting a full day’s play, however, would have been difficult, given nagging October rainfall that has become a traditional enemy of the opening rounds.
After a sunny Saturday morning, significant rain fell in the afternoon, with more than nine millilitres recorded at the Moorabbin Airport weather observation centre between 2 and 5pm.
Dandenong’s opening round of the Premier Cricket Victoria season at Shepley Oval was abandoned at the innings break, having been unable to restart after the interval.
Statistics from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) indicate October is the least ideal time to begin the competition in the region, based on historical rainfall data.
“Down the South East of Melbourne, taking the closest observation point for rainfall around the Pakenham area, Beaconsfield Upper, the median rainfall for October is actually pretty high – 97.3 millilitres,” Chris Kent from the BOM said on Friday 4 October.
“Looking throughout the whole year at this particular location, October is the wettest on average throughout the year.
“88 ml is the average through October and 81 ml in November.
“September is only 79 ml and through Winter, 83 ml in June.
“When you look at it that way, getting washed out in October is probably something that probably happens a fair bit, given it’s the wettest month of the year.
“Looking at last year in October, there was 110 ml recorded.”
Kent says the drastic juxtaposition between hot and cold temperatures is not isolated to Melbourne, and is reflective of the weather patterns across the country.
“(In) October you are starting to see some warmer temperatures developing especially across warmer parts of the country and the volatility of Spring comes from the sharp temperature change between cold and warm.
“When you get those two areas mixing and you get a cold front moving through and dragging down a lot of that heat from inland, and mixing with the cooler air across southern Australia, that’s where the volatility comes from in terms of the weather.
“Come Summer time, that temperature gradient between north and south isn’t that strong, so it tends to be a bit more stable.
“October, you’re starting to see those warmer temperatures in the north.
“Currently across northern Australia it is quite warm.
“For October, we are expecting temperatures across Melbourne and the south east… the chance of exceeding the average temperature to be quite high.
“We are expecting some warmer than average temperatures through that part, hence the volatility could be a little more on the higher side and we’ll get those drastic shifts in weather.”
With further rain expected in the coming weeks, it could force a major reshuffle of the DDCA’s fixtures for later in the season.
Unlike previous years, the competition begins in the three Turf grades with six One Day matches before donning the whites for the first in mid-November in round seven.
“For the forecast over the next couple of weeks, it’s still looking like you could see a little bit of rainfall on the cards,” Kent said.
“Starting next week and going by the climate outlook, you could still see around 2-13 millilitres through the area.”
The prospects of the matches being replayed at a later date remains to be seen.
Last summer, round one was replayed on Sunday, 10 December, after the original fixtures date, Saturday 7 October, was abandoned due to weather conditions.
The DDCA was contacted for comment.
