On Friday Hampshire's T20 Blast game at the Ageas Bowl against the Sussex Sharks was called off at the last minute, following a torrential hail shower shortly before the game was due to start.

Umpires Steve Garratt and Tim Robinson made the decision 45 minutes before play was to begin as puddles made part of the square and run ups unplayable.

Karl McDermott, who's in his first season down at Hampshire following Nigel Gray's retirement, and his team did not detect the sudden cloudburst shortly before 6pm. By the time the crew had managed to bring the mobile covers on and get the sheets attached, the water had gathered on the pitch, ruling out the prospect of any play.

Now obviously a cancelled game is disappointing all round - for the fans, the players, the club management - and especially the groundstaff. They always want do to both themselves and their club proud.

As you would expect Hampshire themselves have defended their staff. Coach Giles White is quoted in the Basingstoke Gazette as saying, “I haven't seen a shower like that here in my time and unfortunately it's written the game off.

"The ground staff are excellent here – they do a fantastic job and there was nothing on the radar, no one saw it coming. They did their very best under extreme conditions and unfortunately it wasn't enough."

Now whilst you would expect and hope that the club would defend their own team, on the other hand they have come in for some very heavy criticism by some fans and the opposition’s captain.

Luke Wright, who skippers Sussex, is claiming that they should be awarded both points and not share one each with Hampshire. He Tweeted, "Unbelievable a 15 min heavy shower got the game called off tonight. So frustrating. Feel for all those who made the effort to come watch!” He added, "I believe we should be given the points. We will certainly try.”

The Argus quoted him as saying, "It was a heavy shower but to end up being called off because water has got on the pitch is very frustrating and not what you really expect from a Test ground.

“The groundsman said straight away he wasn’t expecting it but then the main covers he wanted to get on, because it was hail and coming down so quick, they were too heavy and he couldn’t get them on.

“He held his hands up and said ‘Look, I’ve got it wrong. You wouldn’t have even played village cricket on it.”

And some of the comments posted online by disappointed fans have been nothing short of vitriolic. Examples on The Argus's website included "I've watched cricket for many years, and can safely say I've never seen such incompetence as this from ground staff", "Don't take a genius to read the weather and watch the sky change colour", "That's his p45 in the post then" and "A complete and utter shambles."

Obviously emotions were running high because fans have spent time and money getting to the ground and players have prepared for an important match. So should the groundstaff quite simply have the finger of blame pointed solely at them?

Difficult to say. Clearly there are sophisticated weather prediction tools available to anyone with a smartphone nowadays - but reports locally seem to suggest that nearby remained utterly unaffected during the period when the ground was deluged. It appears to have been an extremely localised downpour.

And could the covers have been brought on and attached quicker? Probably so, but in the heat (or rather wet) of the moment, it's easy for mistakes to be made.

I don't know, it just seems to me to be a little harsh due to the freak nature of the occurrence. Hopefully lessons have been learned and if such a difficult situation presents itself again, it can be managed in a more satisfactory way.