Devon Cricket Board - Pitch Advisors visit New Road

Pitch Advisors visit New Road

Left to right:- Andy Cameron, Colin Whitehall, Charlie Woolnough, Charlie Hughes, Kevin Byrne

On the 20^th March the county’s 5 cricket pitch advisors attended the ECB pitch advisors meeting held this year at Worcestershire CC. We were informed of the new natural turf improvement programme by the institute of groundsmanship national manager Jason Booth. The project is grant funded and aimed at improving sports surfaces at grass roots level. A regional advisor for the south west will soon be announced.

The ECB have also enlisted the help of Allan Lewis to compile online booklets aimed at helping the novice grounds man understand the basic principles behind cricket pitch preparation and maintenance. Allan outlined a draft of the document which should be available on the ECB website in the near future.

Dr Ian James, formerly of Cranfield University has been working on a project to discover best practice for aeration of cricket squares. This has been ongoing for several years but he is finally close to revealing his results which will again be displayed on the ECB website.

We had a couple of talks around lunch on the financial side of things including improvements to the small grant funding, before having a tour of the grounds by head pitch advisor Chris Woods. The extent of the flooding to the ground which occurred over a period of several weeks could clearly be seen as it had left tide marks around the walls and seating areas. As it is almost an annual event the ground staff have invented clever methods of disturbing the silt so it flows away as the river water recedes. There was evidence around of the huge clearing up operation involved with getting the square, outfield and spectator facilities ready for the upcoming season, but the staff at the club were happy to announce business as usual in a positive statement. The outfield had been verti drained, top dressed with 60 tonnes of sand, and seeded to try and get a surface for the start of play. I think we all sympathised with the grounds staff and came back to Devon feeling a little better about our pre-season work.

The pitch advisors hope to announce some activities for this summer so watch this space and are always happy to help clubs out in any way they can.

Best of luck for the forthcoming season and I hope the weather god’s bring us plenty of sunshine.

Kevin Byrne University of Exeter

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