Summer Sports - Cricket
reputation as a very secure batting pitch with lots of runs, quick outfield and highscoring games - it wasn’t the bowlers’ place to be,” he smiles. “But it was such a well-established, flat square, it was very difficult to generate result wickets.” Nigel’s job became far more challenging when Hampshire moved from their quaint old home to the Rose Bowl (now The Ageas Bowl) at the turn of the century. Like the Northlands Road bell - which
makes considerably more noise - he was transferred to the Rose Bowl in 2001, where his quiet diligence helped establish a ground that is the pride of the south.
But it has been far from easy. He
readily admits the lowest point of his career being back-to-back games midway through the second season of first-class cricket at the Rose Bowl, in July 2002. The wicket used for Hampshire’s match against India was so capricious Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid refused to bat in the second innings. They considered the pitch too dangerous, even with fast bowler James Tomlinson taken out of a Hampshire
attack, but still including the medium pace of James Hamblin, Will Kendall and Lawrie Prittipaul. A few days later, Chris Tremlett and Lancashire’s James Anderson both made the most of similar conditions, claiming their maiden first-class five-wicket hauls during a County Championship match. The pitch was bad enough for Hampshire to be docked eight points. “We obviously knew settling a new ground would take time, but didn’t envisage it taking as long as it did, and didn’t realise how big a challenge it would be,” admits Nigel. “We had a year when it wasn’t easy. We left pitches a bit damp in the first year, and then tried to be more adventurous by drying them out more in the second year to get more pace out of them. In hindsight, it was too early to be doing that.”
Nigel sought some advice from Flintoft but, as he was literally treading new ground, much of his work came down to trial and error. “We were always coming up with theories,” he says. “At that time, we knew the pitches would crack at some point during a four-day game, but it was
a case of trying to ensure that process happened as late as possible. We got the pitches for those India and Lancashire games too dry, they were uneven and a problem.” “That was the worst time, and I try not
to remember it! If I could do one thing again, it would be to use the heavy roller on the square a lot earlier than we did. We probably should have started to roll it as soon as it was laid. The ground was built in 1997 but we didn’t play on it till 2000, and I thought leaving it to mature on its own until then was the best thing to do.”
Gradually, the Rose Bowl pitches
improved. Midway through the 2003 season, Hampshire won after following on against Glamorgan. “When that happened, I thought we were going in the right direction,” says Nigel. “And, when John Crawley started to score a lot of runs on a regular basis, that also gave me hope that things were getting better.” Since then, Nigel has prepared pitches for no fewer than sixteen internationals, including thirteen One Day Internationals. “We produced good pitches for one day cricket from the start,
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