The water started flowing into the New Road practice area at about 4pm on Monday afternoon, and just kept on rolling. It flooded the entire ground and half the car park, as well as the nearby racecourse, the rowing club and the public footpath – which is now a popular hang-out space for swans. The head groundsman, Stephen Manfield, a man of a remarkably perky disposition, sits on the balcony of the club’s sports bar watching the fourth flood of the season do its business, the water coming in from the burst banks of the Severn as well as round the back across the fields. For the benefit of Spin readers he pokes his measuring stick into the water – “four-and-a-half feet in the shallow end” – and still rising.
Last off-season New Road was flooded eight times (enough for the chief executive, Ashley Giles, to question the long-term viability of the club), and the 2024-25 winter is tracking in a similar way. Most floods last nine to 10 days, though this is the highest since Worcestershire’s end-of-season party in September. Manfield stirs the murky water. “It is deep, it is minging, it is unpleasant, but is my job and I love it.”
Worcestershire CCC are not alone. Dan Musson, the head of facilities planning at the England and Wales Cricket Board, has been in touch with 27 clubs so far this storm season, and he is expecting to hear from many more this week as a result of the new year floods and the subsequent snow fall and melt. It is still some way short of 2015-16, the worst year to date, when storms Desmond and Eva blew in and more than 60 clubs were significantly affected, but he’s not making any assumptions.
In December, the Environment Agency published its updated picture of current and future flood and coastal erosion risk in England. It isn’t a pretty read. Climate projections suggest one in four of all homes will be at risk by 2050, along with 46% of the road network, 54% of the railway network, 34% of water pumping stations and 18% of agricultural land. Cricket clubs do not have a magic escape route. A third of recreational clubs are now at risk of flooding, and that number is likely to rise in tune with everything else. Ross on Wye CC are one example. The club are on a flood plain – and historically would have expected to flood once every four to five years. They’ve been under water three times since September – a combination of volume of water and blocked drainage culverts (about which they are in dispute with the council).
The ECB has emergency funding available for those who need it (contact facilities@ecb.co.uk) but the most important thing, Musson urges, is for clubs to register for flood alerts and to make a flood plan.
“The key is to identify risk, create a plan, and work out what actions you will take in the event of a flood and who might take those actions. This might be as simple as moving expensive equipment to a safer place at the end of the season, to longer term projects like sandbagging and flood proofing buildings.”
Flood proofing is often very expensive and difficult to carry out, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. In many cases, although a club’s building may not be at risk, the pitch is, and Musson stresses the importance of maintaining culverts and drains so that water can escape. “Often the key is how quickly the water recedes and if there is appropriate drainage and if it is working properly.”
Outside emergency funding, clubs can also apply for flood resilience and protection money through the ECB’s County Grant Funds under the Tackling Climate Change theme. “The impact of climate change affects every club,” says Musson. “Flooding will be the biggest risk to certain clubs in certain parts of the country, but other clubs in other parts of the country are more at risk of drought, and we have even had clubs flooded in areas where a drought order is in place. Essentially, climate change and weather related climactic events can affect clubs in very different ways but across water use, drought risk, flood risk and energy (including carbon reduction) everyone is impacted.”
Corbridge CC, on the banks of the Tyne, were one of those clubs hit by Storm Desmond, the ground inundated with six feet of water after the river rose 24 feet in 20 hours. Their clubhouse was destroyed and they rebuilt two separate buildings: a changing room made out of breeze block and concrete, which is easy to swill out, with electric sockets lifted over a metre high up the walls, and a separate social pavilion that is raised up off the ground. It is a lovely building, and its elevated height makes it fantastic to watch cricket from, but it was hard graft and an expensive business, with funding from the ECB, Northumberland county council, insurance, charitable trusts and private donations.
And, as Musson is evangelical in pointing out, planning is the cheapest thing you can do, as is making sure you are insured, though that is becoming harder as insurers become more canny about flood risk. In those cases, Musson says, “then it becomes all about how you build resilience and weather the experience of flooding. And Worcester is the prime example of that.”
Back then to Manfield and his wellington boots and smelly water. “It’s just disheartening that it is here again,” he says, as he gives a video tour of the flood, “but it is my lot in life now, I think I should grow flippers.”
Quote of the week
Bahut ho gaya (I’ve had enough)” – India’s head coach, Gautam Gambhir, to his team after they lost seven wickets in 20.4 overs at the MCG to give Australia the lead in the series, which ultimately led to the hosts regaining the Border-Gavaskar trophy.
Get ready for Women’s Ashes
It was 11 years ago that England’s women last won the Ashes, pinching the urn from down under by taking the multi-format series 10-8. They stormed to an early lead at the Waca with victory in the one-off Test, enhanced it with a seven-wicket win in the Melbourne one-day international and made things official by collecting the first Twenty20 match at Hobart by nine wickets.
Danni Wyatt-Hodge is one of only five English players (Heather Knight, Amy Jones, Nat Sciver-Brunt, and Kate Cross the others) selected for 2025 who were playing on that 2013-14 tour – “back when I was a bowler!” she said earlier this week. “I don’t really have that many memories apart from Lottie getting all those runs at Hobart and we had a great night out to celebrate.”
Lottie is of course Charlotte Edwards, then England’s captain, who hit the first ball of that Hobart innings to the rope and rattled along to 92 not out at a sharp trot, four through midwicket nailing England’s victory with two overs to spare.
Edwards later told The Cricket Monthly. “The next day I had my worst ever hangover. There’s a picture of me and Heather [Knight] walking back at 5am up this street in Hobart, trying to find our way back to the hotel, and we were both all over the shop.” England went on to be thrashed in the final two T20s of the tour, as injuries multiplied, but they’d done their job – the Ashes theirs for just the third time on Australian soil.
This time around, England have arrived on the back of a successful tour of South Africa, though they did suffer a malfunction at the T20 World Cup in October, knocked out at the group stages after what coach Jon Lewis described as “drifting off” against West Indies. Australia too have shown a glimpse of an ankle of weakness – the reigning champions beaten at the same World Cup in the semi-finals by South Africa. But they are still formidable in the opinion of Wyatt-Hodge: “ruthless, they just fight and fight till the end.”
Australia’s captain, Alyssa Healy, survives from 2014, as do Ellyse Perry and Megan Schutt, but there’s plenty of new blood from the well-stocked coffers. And this time around, the players know each other a lot better too, sharing franchise gigs at the Big Bash, Hundred and Women’s Premier League. We wait to see what familiarity brings. The series starts with the first ODI at North Sydney Oval on 11 January, 11.30pm GMT.
Memory lane
Yuvraj Singh is the joyous passenger after being named player of the match against England, his reward a motorbike. The all-rounder hit a hundred and took four wickets in the second ODI at Indore in November 2008, setting up a 54-run win for India. The hosts were leading the seven-match series 5-0 before the Mumbai terror attacks led to the cancellation of the final two matches.
Still want more?
The dignity and humanity of Afghan women must be worth more than game of cricket, writes Jonathan Liew.
The Women’s Ashes rivals are united in an appeal for three Tests in the multi-format series, reports Martin Pegan.
West Indies great Clive Lloyd says he is “disturbed” by the two-tier plan for men’s Test cricket.
And having conquered the cricket world with Australia, Pat Cummins must now bridge the generations, writes Jack Snape.
… by writing to tanya.aldred.freelance@theguardian.com.
In?
To subscribe to The Spin, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
