Gloucestershire’s County Championship match against Northamptonshire was called off at 5pm on day one because of an unfit pitch at Nevil Road, Bristol.
The decision was taken by the umpires Chris Watts and Sue Redfern with the backing of the match referee Jason Swift after uneven bounce, which led the Northants opening batsman Ricardo Vasconcelos going to hospital with a suspected broken finger.
The umpires issued a brief statement, which read: “The match has been abandoned because there was a foreseeable risk to the batters. In the opinion of the umpires, it would be unreasonable to continue.”
Cash-strapped Gloucestershire, who have no chief executive at present, later issued a statement saying they would defer to the ECB’s inquiry into the circumstances of the abandonment.
The statement read: “Gloucestershire’s match against Northants has been abandoned after the umpires deemed there to be ‘a foreseeable risk to the batters’.
“Whilst we acknowledge that this is not something anyone would have wanted to happen, we need to see, understand and discuss the match referee’s report before making further comment on the decision.
“We expect there will be an ECB investigation and we will of course assist them at all stages of that investigation.”
Since England’s infamous experience at Sabina Park in 1997-8, more than one county match has been abandoned owing to an unfit pitch but in limited-overs matches not in the championship.
This game took place on a hybrid pitch. Pitches with a mixture of natural and artificial grass have been tried around the country, firstly in white-ball games and now in the championship, and have been found to have some extra life in them, being grassier, but not quite to this extent.
The Northants captain Luke Procter decided to bowl first and saw his stand-in opening bowler Justin Broad take seven for 33. Broad – no relation to Stuart – had previously taken 11 first-class wickets at 43 each.
James Bracey could not hold the pitch responsible for his dismissal as the Championship’s leading run-scorer was run out, backing up, when Dom Leach diverted an Ollie Price drive into the stumps.
On the sympathetic surface Broad achieved the best figures of any Northants bowler in matches at Bristol since George Thompson took eight for 14 in 1910.
When Northants replied, Prithvi Shaw and Vasconcelos staged an opening partnership of 50 in 11.1 overs. Vasconcelos took his score to 21 before retiring hurt, after which Procter and Keogh added an unbeaten 49 for the third wicket, whereupon the decision to pull up stumps was made.
Northants take 11 points for the draw, including three bowling bonus points, while Gloucestershire take none.
Elsewhere, Somerset ran up 395 for six against Durham while giving a first-class debut to all-rounder Archie Vaughan, the 18-year-old son of former England captain and Telegraph columnist Michael Vaughan, who contributed a solid 30.
Meanwhile, Jonny Bairstow scored his first first-class century in a little over two years as Yorkshire had the better of the opening day of their promotion battle with Middlesex at Headingley.
Bairstow underpinned Yorkshire’s 372 for five with an unbeaten 107 off 130 balls and was supported by half-centuries from Adam Lyth and George Hill. The impressive Luke Hollman returned three for 99 from 27 overs of leg-spin.
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