Summer Sports - Cricket
“Groundsmen and umpires are very much colleagues in arms, especially as media scrutiny gets keener. Hawkeye and throw-away
observations from the commentary box never tell the whole story”
borehole. When it does rain, as it did in abundance the second half of last season, games there are as much prone to delay as anywhere. Blotters - and Stuart has two of them - do a great job for county groundsmen, soaking up excessive outfield moisture but, when full, their tonne and a half weight acts as a roller, effectively sealing the surface, so follow-up aeration work becomes essential. Last summer, as perhaps never before, journalists saw at close hand the hard labour put in to get play under way. “At club level, quite correctly, you’d be better off letting the rain drain away naturally,” said Stuart. “The reality for us is that members, and the game’s authorities, expect us to do something about it right away. The frustration buck stops with us and, of course, the umpires who, this last summer, have bent over backwards to get play started.”
Rainwater is a costly business in county cricket. Stuart’s two blotters - one twenty year old Australian model and a newer British machine - cost a lot to maintain. Putting new foams on them can cost up to £1000. Last season, Stuart had a lot of
problems with surface puddles because rainfall had been so fast. The ground’s drains go to a sump below the level of the River Cam and this has to be pumped out but, because of the rain levels last summer, the pump was unable to keep up, causing a back-up of water. This was replaced and an additional surface pump, a ‘puddle- sucker’ as Stuart calls it, introduced. There is nothing more depressing for
Stuart Kerrison speaking at the Dennis Sisis seminar at the SWALEC Stadium
County Groundsmen in exalted company ...
Some of the past winners of the Peter Smith Memorial Award include (l-r): Brian Lara, Dickie Bird, Jack Russell, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, and Sir Alec Bedser
cricket followers than the sight of surface water before a ball is bowled. Stuart says that, late in the season, the ground’s new pump set-up worked a treat. Just prior to a CB40 game on the first Sunday in August, against Leicestershire, there had been an almighty shower, leaving a massive outfield puddle, which Stuart says was 120 feet by 60 feet. It looked certain that play would be abandoned, but hard work and the new pump meant the game, reduced to 25 overs, started at 4.00pm. Home supporters were especially pleased with Stuart and his team’s work because Essex won by seven wickets. They were amazed and delighted enough to make a special presentation to him at the end of the season in recognition of his efforts.
The County Ground at Chelmsford was acquired by the club in 1966 and has become its HQ. Prior to that, the club was a ‘travelling circus’ playing its home games at a number of venues across the county. The outfield has recently suffered quite a bad bout of fusarium, which Stuart puts down to the gloomy conditions this autumn, coupled with warm, moist soil beneath. The square has 25 strips all told, 10 or 11 being used for First Class matches and Twenty20. After Graden Scarifier work, reseeding with Bar Extreme is Stuart’s normal post-season routine. He uses five 20k bags, a lot less than many of his counterparts but, as he puts it: “I don’t want to get coverage as thick as the outfield. I like to see a bit of soil between the blades. It makes for a better playing surface here.” Come spring, he’ll be covering it,
creating a micro-climate that will thicken it up. “What you get on top, you get underneath, and I don’t like a thatch layer to develop,” said Stuart. He deals with any algae on the surface by applying a little bit of iron over the winter months. This and some hard spring brushing does the trick. When it comes to topdressing, he uses just six 25k bags a pitch. Others may use as much as twelve. “The grass we use is fast establishing and, importantly to us here, it is drought resistant,” said Stuart. As far as the outfield is concerned, in late autumn and early winter, Stuart and his team spend a lot of time verti- draining it whilst the grass is still growing. Unlike Worcestershire’s New Road,
where Tim Packwood is the Head Groundsman, being adjacent to a river does not present a flood threat at Chelmsford. Even when other parts of the city are flooded, the ground never is.”
Stuart has been at Essex since he left school in 1984 and became head groundsman in 1991. He spent two winters in the late 1990s as head groundsman at the Newslands Ground in Cape Town, which included Test series and ODIs. His Chelmsford ground looked a picture in darkest November, and surely one of many up and down the country getting fit for next year’s first class cricket season. Worthy of journalistic praise, indeed.
©Action Images 78 PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2013
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