The first five minutes: what to do when the rain arrives

The covers come out before the sky turns properly black, not after. Send two players for the tarpaulins, one for the sawdust, and make sure somebody is standing with the umpires while they note the time. On most village squares the covers are old, heavy, and missing a corner, so this is a job for four people and a bit of shouting.

While the ground is being protected, the scorebook becomes the most important object on the ground. The scorers need to record, precisely and legibly: the exact score when play stopped, the number of overs completed, the wickets lost, the runs each batter has, and how many overs every bowler has delivered. That last figure decides your whole strategy if the game restarts, because bowlers' quotas shrink with the innings.

Note the time play is suspended. Most leagues count lost time in blocks of, say, one over for every four minutes, and the umpires will apply that formula when they come back to you. Have your league handbook to hand — on a phone or in the scorebox — before the season starts, not at half past four on a Saturday afternoon.

How revised targets actually work in grassroots cricket

The professional game uses the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method, which weighs both wickets lost and overs remaining. Some county and national competitions use it too. Your village league almost certainly does not. What most recreational leagues use is a simpler run-rate recalculation written into their own rules, and the wording matters enormously.

Broadly, there are two common systems:

• Average run rate: the first team's total is divided by the overs they faced, then multiplied by the overs the chasing side will receive. That gives a revised target.
• Par score: if the second innings is interrupted mid-chase and cannot be completed, the side batting second has to be above the same run rate to win, and below it they lose. Level and it's usually a tie.

A handful of leagues instead award points for an abandoned match, or replay it later in the season. Others insist a minimum number of overs must be bowled for a result at all. Know which category you fall into — it changes whether you're chasing a win or protecting a draw.

A worked example on the back of a scorecard

Your side makes 187 for 6 from 45 overs. Rain arrives during the interval and the opposition's innings is cut to 30 overs. Their target is 187 divided by 45, which is 4.155 runs per over, multiplied by 30 — 124.67, rounded up to 125 to win. Simple enough to do on a phone calculator, and worth doing yourself so you can check the umpires' figure.

Now the same match, but the interruption is mid-chase. You are 90 for 4 after 22 overs when the rain settles in for good. Par is 4.155 multiplied by 22, which is 91.4, so 92 would have been ahead of the rate. At 90 for 4 you are just short, and under a par-score rule you lose by a whisker. That is why the scorer's note of the exact score at the moment of suspension is not a small thing.

What the captain should be thinking about during the delay

A shortened innings resets almost everything, and the decisions you want to have made before the umpires call you back are these:

• Bowler quotas. The maximum is normally a fifth of the innings. In a 45-over match that's 9 overs each. Reduce the innings to 30 and it becomes 6. Any bowler who has already sent down 7 overs is finished for the day — check that before you plan your attack.
• Who bowls the wet ball. After rain, the ball is a bar of soap. Spinners and slower bowlers with a dry towel at fine leg become more valuable, and seamers who rely on a dry grip become a liability.
• Batting order. A 30-over chase changes who should walk out. If your opener is 40 not out on a good pitch, keep him there; if the innings is now a sprint, your cleanest striker of a wet ball may need to go in earlier than usual.
• Fielding restrictions. If your league has powerplay-style rules, check whether the reduced innings also reduces the number of restricted overs. Nobody wants to discover that at the end of the 28th over.
• Keep everyone warm. Send someone to the pavilion for tea, or to the pub if you're lucky enough to have one on the boundary. Cold players drop catches, and a delay of ninety minutes is not a break — it's a small pre-season in the middle of a match.

Getting back on: the restart and the last hour

Drying the square is a shared job. Sponges first, then sawdust on the damp patches around the bowlers' footholds, and only then the roller — and only if the umpires agree the surface can take it. Rolling a wet square does lasting damage, and the person who bowls the first over after a delay is often the person who prepared the pitch.

Once you're back out, the game accelerates. Umpires will be keen to make up overs, so get your field set quickly and don't waste time with long conferences. In time cricket, remember the final hour and any minimum-overs rule that could still produce a result. In limited-overs cricket, an over rate that's slipped during the rain can cost you points even if you win.

The village game keeps its own weather rules

Rain is part of grassroots cricket the way a sloping outfield is. The scorer is often the groundsman, the covers are often older than half the team, and the opposition captain is often the person who helped you drag them across the square. Argue your case about the target, by all means, but do it with the handbook open and a calm voice, and shake hands whatever the umpires decide. The result goes in the table; the way you handled a wet Saturday goes round the league for years.