New Road flood threat to tour match

By Paul Bolton

Worcestershire are optimistic that their tour match against South Africa will go ahead at New Road on July 27 and 28 even though the outfield at their headquarters has been flooded for the second time this season.

The rivers Severn and Teme broke their banks on Sunday evening, flooding around a third of the New Road outfield to a depth of around a foot and forcing county officials to clear equipment from low-lying areas of the ground.

Water levels rose quickly on Sunday evening forcing staff to clear out the marquee on the ground and re-locate functions scheduled for that facility.

But flood levels peaked at a lower level than in early May when New Road was last flooded but river levels have already started to fall and Worcestershire are optimistic that the outfield will be playable again later this week.

“The river levels have already fallen and the forecast for the rest of the week is reasonable so we are hopeful that the water will drain away quickly,” said Worcestershire chief executive David Leatherdale.

Worcestershire have contingency plans to switch matches to Chester Road at Kidderminster at short notice and have had the Birmingham League club on standby for more than a week after initial fears of flooding last week.

Worcestershire did switch their Clydesdale Bank 40 match against Holland in May to Kidderminster from New Road and also announced that their County Championship match against Surrey would be played at the outground.

But the Surrey match was moved back to New Road after the floodwaters receded as quickly as they had risen and no residual silt was left on the outfield.


Date: 16/07/2012 21:46:40 by Paul Bolton
In: Worcestershire | Today |