ACCORDING to my information, such as it may be, there are around 200 cricket clubs in Ireland, 300 in Scotland, goodness knows how many in the shires in England, and 1,588 in Bangladesh. At all of them, what is called a "heavy atmosphere" is deemed to be advantageous for the bowler, and to place the batsman, figuratively speaking, on a sticky wicket.
It is surprising how heavy the air can be. We are not usually conscious of its weight, because it exerts its pressure on us in all directions, but the air in an average sized room weighs about 16 stone, making it considerably heavier than the average occupant.
A heavy atmosphere, however, is commonly understood to be one where the humidity is high, although on such occasions the air is not really heavier than at any other time.
The weight of a given volume of air is the combined weight of the millions and millions of molecules of the gases that comprise it. Nitrogen and oxygen make up about 99 per cent of a dry atmosphere, and a molecule of either of these gases weighs over 50 per cent more than a molecule of water. So if some of the nitrogen and oxygen molecules are replaced by water molecules the air gets lighter - and not heavier.
But back to cricket. By constant but selective polishing, a bowler can arrange that one side of the ball is smoother than the other, then as it flies through the air the smooth surface of the ball experiences less frictional drag than does the rough side, causing a veer or swing in the direction of the rough.
The extent of the swing, apparently, is related to the humidity presumably because of its effect on the density of the air around the ball. On a bright sunny day very little swing will be expected, but in dull, overcast and heavy conditions, massive swing may make the ball difficult for the bowler to control, and difficult for the batsman to hit well. A good bowler, it seems, takes the effect of the weather on the likely swing into account when planning his trajectory.
And the term "sticky wicket", figuratively used above, has a precise and literal meaning for a cricketer. A wicket is "sticky", it seems, when it has dried out rapidly in sunshine after a period of rain. It means that a spinning ball delivered by a bowler can grip the ground when it bounces just before the wicket, and its onward path is difficult for a batsman to anticipate or so they tell me.