Summer Sports - Cricket
Construction work continues apace in readiness for the Ashes Test
“The lights are on from 4.00am to 8.00am and were made in our own workshop”
The Point’s counterpoint, the Media Centre, will house Matt’s new machinery workshop below
International Cricket Ground - and adds to the burgeoning Middle Eastern presence in Manchester’s elite sporting landscape. Readers of my last two interviews with Matt will already be familiar with the details of the mammoth task he undertook in rotating the square. A year on, the new wickets are bedding in nicely but haven’t been without their share of snags along the way. The introduction of eleven new wickets, five of which were laid across old ones, prompted certain strips to dry out faster than others, due, says Matt, to the difference in organic make-up. The problems have been addressed
through a programme of Drill ‘n’ Fill. Five of the worst affected old pitches were treated with 25mm injections at 4” centres. Each hole was then filled with a uniform Surrey loam, the same that was used on the new constructions - some 380 tonnes applied in total. “Before works began, the difference in the wickets was clearly seen,” Matt tells me, “but the drill ‘n’ fill has now remedied the problem. Each pitch was laid at a different time, so we were experiencing irregular drying rates. We could see the 10ft spacing of each pitch - it looked stripy and a little odd,” he explains.
Matt with a prerequisite for the Manchester weather!
The new pitches saw little action last season (only a couple of one-day fixtures) and Matt hadn’t planned for much with the new constructions still so young.
On the whole, last season proved to be a rather sorry one for Lancashire, after winning the championship in 2011, only to suffer the pain of relegation in 2012. Matters weren’t much better for Matt and the team, with a record number of hours of play lost due to the perpetual downpours, meaning that, for large stretches of the season, the new square was under covers.
A staggering 1,200 hours of play were lost to the weather in 2012, he reports, equating to some 234 overs washed away with the rain - “the highest figure in a decade”.
The year also witnessed a change in location, with one of the club’s outgrounds dropped for not meeting required standards. The quality of the changing facilities was considered not good enough for top-flight cricket, so Blackpool was dropped from the schedule. Fond memories of the brew hut will
remain for Matt and the team once the temporary seating replaces their current siting next to the practice nets (which are also going under Tarmac), but the logistics of the team’s daily duties will be much improved with the relocation to below the new players changing rooms and media centre, where the team will enjoy a new kitchen, lunchroom, shower and changing facilities, large store area for machinery, seed, soil, fertiliser and fuel.
On my next visit here, I may well be
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