No jacket required: English cricket feels the heat
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If any further proof were needed that the English are truly struggling with the hot weather they have been experiencing in the last few months, it has arrived in the form of an unprecedented move at the home of cricket.
External Link: Lord's Cricket Ground tweet
"Due to the abnormally warm temperatures, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) has decided to dispense with requirement for gentlemen to wear jackets in the Pavilion and arrive wearing one," Lord's said.
The MCC — the traditional custodian of the game — is a famously stuffy, officious organisation, wedded to rules of correct behaviour demanded of its members.
A strict dress code policy exists.
"Gentlemen shall wear lounge suits or tailored jacket and trousers, shirt, tie or cravat and shoes with socks," it reads.
While, for the women, "dresses; or skirts or trousers (which may be cropped below the knee) or culottes, with blouses or smart tops, and formal shoes, boots or sandals," must be worn.
But desperate times call for desperate measures.
With temperatures this week reaching 35C in some places in south-east England, the hottest day of the year in a summer that has delivered soaring temperatures to a population unaccustomed to them, the body has felt compelled to bend its rules.
Members arriving to watch Middlesex's Vitality Blast T20 match with Hampshire were told ahead of the toss that they could enter the famous Long Room without wearing a jacket, because of the "abnormally warm" weather.
The searing heat — by UK standards at least — has already impacted on the cricket.
Ahead of a Test series between India and England, the tourists' warm up match with Essex was shortened by a day over concerns over the state of the parched outfield at Chelmsford, as well as players' wellbeing.
The UK Met office predicts there is no end in sight to the heatwave, with a historical record high of 38.5C – recorded in August 2003 – a possibility to be beaten in the coming days "if conditions all come together".
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