Soft spots keep players off Cobham Oval

Whangarei produced one of its beautiful days today, a light breeze easing the heat under cloud-speckled blue skies. Unfortunately, it did not produce any cricket.

Persistent rain over the previous day and a half coupled with high humidity meant that the covers could not protect the pitch and surrounds for this eighth-round Shell Trophy Northern Districts-Canterbury match from producing a tropical microclimate. It left the pitch soft and strategic points on the bowlers' run ups like sponges.

Early inspections immediately ruled out the morning session. A further umpires' inspection at lunch moved the next decision-time back to 2.30pm when another session of pressing into the bare patches on the pitch and scuffing the run-ups, particularly at the Okara Park end, put the decision off until 3.30pm.

At that point, the captains reached mutual agreement that it was in their best interests to allow the drying process to continue for the rest of the day and return to make a fresh start tomorrow. The toss was clearly the key. Neither would have been interested in either subjecting their top order to a searching couple of hours on an interesting pitch or, alternatively, their pacemen to unsafe bowling conditions.

So, in the late afternoon, the ground was left to bake in glorious sunshine, disturbed only by Canterbury players going through their fielding practice routines.

Weather permitting, the match will get underway tomorrow at 10.30am.