Summer Sports - Cricket
“
Apparently, on one of the days, we covered and uncovered the whole square ten times. It was pretty exhausting, but we didn’t actually count how many times
On-off covers duty at the Sri Lanka Test in 2011
being excited when Hampshire won the County Championship for only the second time back in 1973. “I’m in the sport and
Nigel Gray, Hampshire’s Head Groundsman for twenty-five years 64 I PC JUNE/JULY 2015
always interested in how the club is doing but, when I retire, my interest won’t mean coming back to watch every day that the club plays. What I might do is go to the occasional away match. I haven’t had the time to see many of the other county grounds and I’d certainly like to do that. I have been to some, but by no means all. When you’re busy running what’s a pretty much full-time operation on your own ground, you just don’t get a chance to see how others do it.” Nigel tells me how, at Northlands Road, he used to cut the outfield with just one 36-inch mower with a seat. This, a couple of mowers for the square, a basic roller, and a titchy rotary for the utility surrounds was all the two of them had. At the Bowl, he and his six full-time staff always have two or three pitches on the go and there’s a decent array of machines, notably John Deere and Dennis, to keep the twenty-pitch square and outfield in the main ground, plus all the amenity surrounds and fourteen- pitch square and outfield play in the nearby nursery ground, in top order.
And the big matches?
The first Test at the ground, against Sri Lanka in 2011, was a landmark in Nigel’s career and a tough five days. He says he was very relaxed about the pitch he’d produced for it, but the weather did rather dampen the experience. The first two or three days were very badly rain affected. “Apparently, on one of the
days, we covered and uncovered the whole square ten times,” he recalls. “It was pretty exhausting, but we didn’t actually count how many times.” As yet, the ground has
staged just two Test matches, the rainy one against Sri Lanka and, last summer, a more notable one against India, which Nigel most definitely enjoyed. “Producing a good pitch
that delivers an interesting game of cricket is very satisfying, whether it’s five days, four or one. The India Test Match here lasted all five days and England won. If you remember, Moen Ali mopped them up on the last day.” Everyone at the ground
was a little disappointed not to get an Ashes Test this summer, but it’s certainly in the running for future Test series call-up as part of the ECB bidding process. Businessman and cricket devotee Rod Bransgrove,
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