MODERN CRICKET MAINTENANCE
By Steve Gingell, STRI Area Manager for the South West
The recent trend in weather conditions towards warmer, later autumns has, in some cases, resulted in an extension to the cricket season. It is not uncommon for cricket to continue to be played well into September. This causes problems where clubs have limited grounds maintenance capabilities to undertake renovations, which can take a significant period of time when there is a risk that the weather will close in. Sometimes, the traditional methods of cricket renovation simply take too long and do not achieve the desired objectives.
The traditional method of renovation would include cutting the square, scarification, solid tining, overseeding and topdressing. These operations tend to be undertaken using pedestrian machines.
The problem
Apart from not being able to complete the full renovation programme before the weather closes in, the results can, in many cases, be poor or even detrimental to the square. For example, the attempted solid tining of a square when
The use of smaller, traditional scarifiers to penetrate as deeply as practical, which is often no more than 5mm, effectively only scratches the surface and does not tackle any underlying
organic matter that may be present
it is extremely dry and hard will only seek to exploit any breaks or layers within the soil profile. These breaks can remain right the way through the winter and even be present throughout the following playing season. The effect is invariably a reduction in bounce, as energy will be absorbed into the layering. It is not uncommon to see this phenomenon at around the depth of spiking, which could be between 50mm and 75mm depending on how far the tines penetrated the surface. The use of smaller, traditional scarifiers to penetrate as deeply as practical, which is often no more than 5mm, effectively only scratches the surface and does not tackle any underlying organic matter that may be present. It may also fail to create a sufficient key for the new loam applications. The end result could be that a different loam placed on the surface would fail to bind and could potentially peel away later when in use. The final problem generally relates to time and effort. Many cricket clubs have very large squares, and effective renovation using pedestrian machinery is an extremely time- consuming and laborious operation.
The solution
The solution to the problem will depend greatly on the objectives and issues that need to be resolved through renovation. This is where it is very important to seek advice from a suitably competent agronomist or ECB pitch advisor. In this article a couple of scenarios are detailed together with the possible solutions. This will, however, represent the majority of the non-construction issues found on many cricket squares.
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