When Ben Stokes left the field at Headingley last Sunday having struck 135 not out to keep England in with a hope of regaining the Ashes, his achievement was no less than Herculean.
Yet for a band of hardy village cricketers, even Australia’s most vicious fast bowling would have been preferable to the fire, hail and thunderstorms that they have had to contend with in their attempt to break the world record for the longest continuous cricket match. Players at Blunham Cricket Club in Bedfordshire have been battling the elements and fatigue since last Saturday when they began their quest to play for 168 hours non-stop.
Forgoing proper sleep and hot baths, at 4pm today the 24 cricketers hope to complete the challenge during which they have napped for only about three hours a day in tents behind the pavilion.
As well as their self-inflicted deprivations, they have been beset by a series of calamities. On Tuesday torrential rain flooded the pitch and waterlogged the turf, only to be followed by a “skull-cracking” hailstorm a few hours later. Then on Thursday evening, just when they thought the worst was behind them, a fire broke out by the side of the pitch after a pizza oven providing food for the players set a hedgerow on fire.
Matt Cottrell, 31, a Blunham CC player who has taken a week of annual leave from his job in finance to take part in the attempt on the record, said: “It was just unbelievable. We’d had the rain, the hail and now this. What else can they possibly throw at us — a plague of locusts?
“Fortunately, one of our players, Harry Chin, is a fireman and so he quickly directed us to make a chain and pass buckets of water out. After about half an hour the fire was out and the game carried on.”
If they reach their target of 168 hours, Blunham will have beaten the 150 hours and 14 minutes of continuous game time achieved by Loughborough University Staff side, and will have raised about £40,000, which they plan to use to buy a new pitch and make a donation to charity.
Wearily padding up yesterday morning for the 25th time in the week, Max Hurst, 23, said that it had been a mental struggle to keep going to the end.
“It’s OK during the day when there are people watching the match and cheering you on,” he said. “But in the middle of the night when it’s just you and the floodlights, it’s pretty mind-numbing. When this is finally all over, I for one certainly won’t be too annoyed if I don’t see another cricket ball for a long while.”
