Just like the forecasters said it would, but apparently no one in cricketdom was in possession of a radio to catch the latest forecasts.
Or had read the paper, or been in conversation with someone who had remarked "weather sounds a bit grim this weekend".
Nope, they ironed their whites and applied fresh linseed oil to their bats and walked on to the fresh, green grass.
I drove by and caught sight of them and thought of the stoic and brave chaps who left the shelter of their diggings and threw themselves over the lip of the trenches - to charge into an impossible battle against impossible odds.
The cricket chaps must have known their day on that green field was going to end early, and damply.
I daresay the only chap who succeeded in his duties on that day was the groundsman who carried the waterproof covers out.
Had I been a spectator at the ground I would have called out "well done, lads ... that's the spirit!" as they defied the first few early drops of rain.
But apart from the 13 players, the two umpires, the chaps in the shed waiting to bat, the scorers and the groundsman, no one would have heard me.
The anticipated few spectators clearly had access to something the players did not.
The weather forecast.
It was a grim Saturday.
The sort of day that had seen events shuffled and cancelled.
The sort of Saturday that would have seen the previous weekend's Mission Concert called off.
Autumn is here, some might say, to which I would feel obliged to add that no, it actually arrived around January 18.
And now, here's my entry for the 2012 Understatement of the Year Competition.
It has not been a memorable few months in terms of the weather.
But one has to take a leaf from the cricketers' book here. One has to staunchly front up and face the southeasterlies front on.
When the clouds smother the sun and the first spots of rain begin to appear on the kitchen window you have to take solace in some simple but effective words ... it can only get better.
On the night of the worst of the weather, when the winds were so willing the rain drove in just off the horizontal, I went for my evening walk. I wore a plastic raincoat which whipped about as I refused to zip it up ... to do that would be to give in.
The air was cool and unfriendly but I was not in the slightest deterred or downcast (unlike the sun). Because it was only the third day of March and that meant all was not lost.
It was like having been transported across the world and into the streets of Manchester or London - still in the dank depths of late winter and temperatures set to rattle and shiver along around the 12C mark for some time yet.
I smiled, because despite being in "their late winter" I knew that in just a couple of days things would become more clement as the rogue system wandered off, and March, and even April, would still offer up early autumn warmth.
A mere glitch in the scheme of things ... as has been the summer of 2011/12, which suffered ignition failure.
And so, the forecast for the rest of the week is a pretty average to sloppy one but I have no problems with that. For whatever the skies and seas and elements deliver next Saturday one thing remains a certainty ... the cricketers will be attaching their pads ... regardless.
Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.
