Delays at Dover ferry port sees Southampton University Cricket Club hit boredom for six with impromptu match

With the cricket season almost upon us, one group of players took advantage of long delays to get in some pre-season practice. Cricketers caught in the Dover ferry queue chaos played an impromptu match to while away the wait.

Stumped by a 10-hour delay, 20-year-old Conor White and fellow students from Southampton University Cricket Club began a game at Folkestone services in Kent after their planned college trip to Italy was put on hold. The lads also amused themselves by singing along to Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline blasting through their speaker.

They had set off from their University campus at 6am on Saturday morning and arrived at Dover at 9am. They had their passports checked, but were sent away to Folkestone services to wait for three hours.

The students were supposed to board the ferry at 11.15am on Saturday, but were delayed until 9pm. Although expecting to arrive in Rimini for 3pm UK time the group remained in high spirits.

Conor, a mathematics student at Southampton, said: "We’ve actually had a really good time. We had our passports checked, but then were sent to a service station until our driver was alerted to come back.

"We had cricket stuff with us so we thought let’s have a game- to pass some time. We had a rugby ball too which we threw around. There were loads of school trips too so everyone got involved."

There was another delay at border control, which Conor put down to them being short-staffed.

He added: "It took us a little while to get through, but we carried on playing. We weren’t causing too much of a nuisance."

The cricketers are due to stay in Italy for four nights as part of a trip bringing university sports societies from across the UK together.