Monsoons and Intermonsoons Photo courtesy The Telegraph The New
Zealand cricketers should not be surprised that their matches
are being rained on. The following is from an article titled
“The Language of Climate in Sri Lanka” (Daily News 28/04/09):
“In an article published a few years ago (Daily News, Thursday
4th December 2003) we found the schedules and venues of the Test
cricket matches for a decade were out of sync with the climate.
Most of our test matches had been scheduled at the start of the
Maha season – a time to make a good muddy field.” I recently met
the author of this article, Lareef Zubair, who explained that a
large part of the problem is the public perception of the word
monsoon. The word is redolent of darkening skies, torrential
rain and tropical lushness. I myself have often wondered why
there was no classic monsoon rain during the so-called monsoon,
and why the heaviest rain always seemed to be referred to as
“intermonsoonal”. It is always tempting to put such apparent
discrepancies down