ABSTRACT
Western Suburbs played Mosman in a Sydney first grade cricket match on Saturday 23 October 1976, the day of a solar eclipse. In the weeks before, health authorities had warned of the dangers of looking directly at the sun during the eclipse, and the two captains, Bob Simpson and David Colley, heeded those warnings. They agreed to play during the normal tea interval, and then draw stumps early so that everyone would be indoors for the eclipse. Wests eventually won the game, but the NSW Cricket Association declared the contest a ‘no match’ because of the unauthorized alteration of normal playing hours. Wests lost their points and all performances — including Simpson's 104 and Allan Border's 83 — were struck from the records. Wests' veteran bowler Wally Wellham called it ‘one of the darkest days in the history of Sydney grade cricket’. 1
