There are few sports that will be hit harder by climate change than cricket.
Cricket depends on the weather in so many ways. Even the slightest change in the overhead conditions can have a huge bearing on the outcome of a match, the type and quality of pitches produced are hugely affected by the weather, as are the players and even the very sport itself.
No one likes seeing an exciting match curtailed by rain, but what if games have to be delayed because the heat becomes too much for players to handle?
Cricket is already feeling the effects of rising temperatures.
Many fans will remember when Joe Root had to retire unwell and was hospitalised due to dehydration after just an hour at the crease during stifling 43-degree heat in the 2017-18 Ashes in Australia.
With cricket often being played at the height of summer in some of the world’s hottest countries, it is likely more and more cricketers will succumb to the effects of extreme temperatures as the planet warms up, making the sport a far worse spectacle for fans as players struggle in the scorching sun and a straight-up dangerous experience for those out on the pitch.
Other boards must follow Australia’s lead and introduce extreme heat policies to protect the people most fundamental to cricket – the players.
The widespread impacts of the climate crisis on cricket have become impossible to ignore: matches being delayed due to air pollution in Dehli, a cricket ground submerged due to flooding in Worcester, players being allowed to shower for just two minutes due to droughts in Cape Town and smoke from ravaging bushfires causing games to be abandoned in Australia.
Increased summer rainfall in England will only lead to more and more games being cancelled, with the number of rain-affected matches more than doubling since 2011.
(Scott Barbour/Getty Images)
On the other side of the coin, severe rainfall deficits threaten to tear matches away from many of the world’s greatest cricket cities, such as Cape Town, Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur, where past droughts have meant that there is barely enough water for people to live by – let alone water cricket pitches. In 2016, a court ordered that 13 IPL games had to be moved due to a severe water crisis in Maharashtra, something that is only going to become more common in the future around the world unless cricket boards start to think of solutions.
Even Shane Warne has urged the cricketing world to start taking climate change seriously.
Preparations for the potential devastation climate change could wreak on cricket must start now – because if they don’t, then climate change will have free rein over cricket’s future.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
I actually don't know who Mel n Kim are. I'm a Dylan / Young / Springsteen Mellencamp guy.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
No wonder you said what you said
Doctordbx
Roar Rookie
It's all sorted because my car has Climate Control.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
The weather changes quite often on a daily basis. Climate on the other hand is based on a much much longer chronology. The two are vastly different. The confusion comes from using the terms interchangeably.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
In Sydney, on a clear day, you can see the smog.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
I'm a polemicist when it comes to music. I said, "Doc, are you sure? ... can l get a 2nd opinion?". He said, "Sure, you're ugly too"
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Yeah it is extreme. I'm a bit nerdish re this stuff; spend way too much time looking over places I have been and those that I have bookmarked to travel in the next 10 years. Yet, it's all the same story. There is less ice everywhere! It's the loss of volume/vertical height of ice loss that is key. I guess I just use Google Earth on a 2D basis (horizontal loss) as an easy demonstration of what is happening - because those satellite images cannot be denied. Once one accepts that, it stands to reason that there are many other areas beyond ice fields that are also having to bend to climate changes, mostly faster than local ecosystems can adapt.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Man. You sound like my first two wives. Judgemental what?
Philbert
Guest
Ah, but Google doesn't factor in the elevation drop, only a straight point A to B line in the air. It's 1.5km when measured along the surface/glacial bed. Either way, it's extreme
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
You disappoint me greatly
Jeff
Roar Rookie
I've become a bit obsessed; but also check out the Jokulasrlon glaciers in Iceland. Plus the other ones in Iceland. If nothing else, it's a great way of zooming in on Google Earth. I kinda love Google Earth and checking the globe out.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Philbert's post re Franz Josef glacier got me looking at NZ glaciers. TBH I've never really focused on NZ; but there are some substantial retreats/ice loss there. I don't have a feel for glacier "replenishment"/forward movement in NZ, but aerial assessment looks like some serious reduction in ice mass.
Reddy
Roar Rookie
For those who don't believe in climate change and global warming. When I visited fox and Franz Josef glaciers on the west coast of New Zealand as a teenager to walk to the glaciers from the car parking area was about a 5 minute walk. Now to see them you have to chopper in. This has occurred in the last 25 years.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
So, I just did a satellite imagery check; — You say Franz Josef has retreated by 1.5km in 80 years. — I’ve measured it between April 2007 and September 2019 (12 years) showing retreat @ 1.2kms. However, the imagery is a bit deceptive; arguably perhaps the “ice extent” is further forward than what I measured. It’s hard to tell. If I took that position, at best the front of the glacier is nothing more than scattered ice blocks. So looking at this glacier closely; the loss of ice mass is even more stark than the retreat of the front. Looks like 70%-90% loss of mass at the front end by 2019. — The “upper” reaches (back end) may influence the figures re ice loss as you noted in your OP. — It’s quite a retreat/ice loss however one looks at it. What are other NZ glaciers doing?
Paul D
Roar Rookie
What you’re really saying is question anything you don’t personally approve of and slavishly agree with everything you do. I would hardly call that page “science”. Nor would I call the guardian “science” either. Certainly the degree of impact of humans on climate is still being determined but in terms of whether or not human emissions are making a difference to the climate, I am unquestionably of the belief, in accordance with the vast majority of scientists in this field, that they most certainly are.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Not Mel 'n Kim.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
What are you pushing?
Jeff
Roar Rookie
P.S: Do you also get down for a meal break a few hundred meters from Bin Laden's house in Abbottabad, prior to the final leg into Rawalpindi? :laughing: :laughing:
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Genius may be pushing it. Just.
Warnie's Middle Finger
Guest
Where and how am I "pushing Fred Smith's lovechild ?" There are copies of predictions printed by the Guardian, New York Times and others ( Not personal opinions by Smith) on that site which contradict what's being said in 2021. It's interesting that now we're told that the Earth's temperature has been increasing at a faster rate since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, yet most predictions 30 - 40 years ago by scientists ( in one example, The Cooling, it refers to a CONSENSUS of scientists) claimed that we are approaching an Ice Age. Back in High School, one science teacher told us that science ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS questions. Judging by your irrational response, you don't. Shame.