Summer Sports - Cricket
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Rolling begins seven days out from the match, with twenty- five minutes of rolling per wicket per day
sheds, getting rid of any old and unwanted tools and machinery. It also gave him time to put together a wish list for new machinery. His request was rewarded this year with the club investing in a new Ransomes triple mower for the outfield, a new Allett C20 cassette mower and a new reconditioned roller.
His first full playing season (2013/14) gave him the chance to evaluate the pitches, tinkering with his method of preparation and pitch repairs to see how they performed and, of course getting to know the players and coaching staff and how the club was run. Harborne is a busy, well run club with both grounds being used to full capacity during the playing season and the clubhouse is open seven days a week. Peter allows fourteen days to prepare a
match wicket, bringing the HOC down from 12mm to 6mm in stages, cleaning out between cuts using a verticutting unit and regular hand brushing to keep the profile clean. Depending on weather conditions, he will water and use covers to control the moisture in the new wicket.
Rolling begins seven
days out from the match, with twenty-five minutes of rolling per wicket per day. He uses an old Ransomes Auto Certes to cut the pitch and his new Allett C20 for pitch preparations. Peter aims to get several games
out of each pitch on the
main 42 I PC OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2015
square, which is usually used by the first team, second team and youth sides. On the second ground, which has less pitches, he makes the pitch last as long as possible to facilitate a lot of youth games. The squares are fed on a little and often
regime, using a range of granular NPK formulations. The outfield is cut at between 25-30mm, depending on the time of the year. This coming winter, for the first time, the outfield will be used by a local junior football club. Like most cricket groundsmen, the autumn
renovations are a key time to prepare the square for the following season and, having taken soil samples, Peter was mindful that there was a slight thatch issue on both squares, so he hired in a Graden scarifier to clean out the unwanted material, scarifying in several directions and to a depth of 10mm, topdressing with between 4-6 bags of Banbury loam per pitch and seeding with a perennial rye grass seed mix. He also addressed the levels on the wicket ends during renovations. During the summer, the job becomes a
seven days a week operation, splitting his time across both the neighbouring grounds. Peter is fortunate that his wife and son actively help him on a regular basis during the summer months. Both are adept at jumping on a mower and
roller when needed, they usually come in towards the end of the week to help get the ground ready for the weekend’s play. Peter likes it all done by Friday night. His match day routine begins at 8.00am, when he checks the ground, sets out the boundary rope and, depending on the weather, he will move any raised covers and flat sheets that may be protecting the square; he will then hand brush the wicket, give it a final mow and roll (20 minutes), paint the lines and set up the stumps. It’s then a case of waiting for the players and umpires to arrive, making sure they are all happy, before sitting back to enjoy the match.
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