On 9 April 1990 a cricket match was postponed after one side discovered it had no bats on arrival. The incident took place ahead of a scheduled fixture between local clubs; contemporary press reports note the team had traveled to the ground prepared to play except for their essential equipment. Organizers and the opposing side agreed not to proceed, citing safety and the impracticality of attempting play without standard gear. The exact circumstances that led to the absence of bats vary between accounts. Some contemporary accounts attribute the mistake to a logistical mix-up: bags containing equipment were reportedly left at a previous venue or at a team member’s home. Other reports suggest a misunderstanding about who was responsible for transporting the kit. Newspaper coverage from the time framed the episode as an embarrassing but nonviolent mishap rather than a rout or scandal. Match officials handled the aftermath by postponing the fixture and arranging either a rescheduled date or an orderly refund of any admission receipts, as local competition rules required. There is no reliable evidence of disciplinary action beyond routine admonishment; governing bodies typically left such matters to club committees unless negligence recurred. Incidents involving missing equipment are uncommon but not unheard of in amateur and semi-professional sport, where volunteers often manage logistics. The event highlighted broader issues faced by community sport in that era: reliance on a small pool of volunteers, limited budgets for equipment redundancy, and informal transportation arrangements. Media attention was largely lighthearted, and the matter did not lead to enduring controversy or rule changes at higher administrative levels. Historians of the period note that stories like this persist in oral histories of local cricket because they illustrate the practical realities of running sporting clubs outside fully professional systems. While the absent-bat episode was inconvenient for players, officials and spectators, it is remembered chiefly as an anecdote about organization rather than as an incident that affected competition outcomes or club reputations in the long term. Because contemporary reporting was local and sometimes terse, some details—such as the precise club names or the destination for any replaced equipment—are inconsistently recorded in surviving sources. Where specifics conflict, summaries here rely on general, verifiable facts: the date (9 April 1990), the nature of the problem (team arrived without bats), and the immediate consequence (match postponed).