LEVEL PLAYING FIELDS
Despite horrendous weather conditions during the cricket off season two test grounds, 200 miles apart, have been extensively upgraded as part of a major funding programme by the ECB.
Report by Carol Dutton B
illed as the ‘Summer of Cricket’, the 2009 international cricket season is the longest it has ever
been. With the First Test against the West Indies starting at Lord’s on 6th May, and the final One Day International (ODI) against Australia being played at the Riverside on 20th September, it is certainly a busy schedule. Throw in the Twenty20 World Cup - both men’s and ladies - five Ashes Tests, and all the county fixtures, and groundsmen up and down the country are going to have their work cut out.
A cursory look at the fixtures shows that Headingley Carnegie and The Brit Oval stage the fourth and fifth Ashes Tests respectively, along with a host of ODIs. So, the pressure is on Andy Foggarty, Head Groundsman at Headingley, and The Oval’s Bill Gordon, especially with the demands of spectators and the media.
The outfields at both grounds have
undergone major renovation works that started last autumn and finished just in time for this season - through the worst winter in recent years!
20 Whilst cricket
has taken a more realistic and spectator friendly stance to bad weather over recent seasons, with
many ODIs continuing through showers, it is when the rain gets heavy and prolonged that problems can occur. The recent new drainage at Lord’s showed what could be achieved with a bit of investment and has prompted the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to provide major funding for ground improvements.
At Headingley Carnegie their new pavilion and tiered seating meant that, for safety purposes, the northern half of the outfield had to be dropped by 600mm. “Traditionally, Headingley had a one in forty slope towards the Kirkstall end,” says James Westwood, the STRI’s Design and Drainage Consultant in charge of the renovation. “We had to reduce it by 600mm because of the rake of the seating.”
Andy Foggarty with Stephen Fell
J Pugh-Lewis, who won the construction contract, arrived on site in October, stripped the existing turf from the surface with a Koro Field Topmaker, stripped the topsoil and stockpiled it on the outfield just south of the square. They began regrading, cutting into the northern half of the ground and removing 1,300 cubic metres of subsoil. “We now had two gigantic heaps of soil on the outfield,” James Westwood remembers. “They regraded the rest of the outfield, which had been quite undulating, before installing pipe drainage at four metre centres and pipe works for the new irrigation system.” Trenches were dug with 450 metres of ducting to house cables for flood lighting.
“Normally, this type of renovation
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