AND DON'T FORGET THE GROUNDSMAN
Nothing shapes the character of a game of cricket more
fundamentally than the pitch. Making a good one is hard
work, requiring patience, endless rolling, a careful eye
on the weather and a mixture of technical know-how, experience
and good luck. Even when all goes well and a pitch is 22
yards of perfectly level, firm closely cropped turf, things
can go wrong. A couple of seasons ago at Worcester the start
of a Championship match was delayed because the starting
handle had fallen off the motor-roller and had been pressed
deeply down into the pitch on a perfect length. More often
the weather intervenes and groundsmen, like farmers, are
never satisfied. Nor, for that matter, are players. If a
pitch is too damp or green, the batsmen complain louder
than the seamers rub their hands. If it is too dry only
the spinners are happy, and there are too few of them, especially
at the highest level of cricket. If a "hard, fast belter"
is produced, bowlers of all types say it is impossible to
get anyone out. If there is too much bounce the pitch is
described as dangerous. If there is too little, it is impossible
to play shots and the bowlers are equally unhappy. John
Mortimore used to say of the Bristol wicket in his day that
"the only bowler it suits is a medium-paced dwarf".
In 1981 England fell into line with the other countries
by covering pitches at all times during matches when no
play was in progress (except in fine weather in the intervals)
thus depriving the game in England of some of its traditional
variety and unexpectedness. Something of the mystique of
reading a pitch was thus lost. Gone, temporarily at least,
were the days when Wilfred Rhodes and Emmott Robinson of
Yorkshire could disagree about the exact time when a wet
pitch would start to take spin under the influence of hot
sun. It was on such a pitch that, in 1956, Jim Laker had
taken his 19 wickets in the Old Trafford Test against Australia.
It was England's nearest equivalent to the old "Brisbane
sticky" which used to occur first at Brisbane's Exhibition
Ground and then at the Woolloongabba Ground, where tropical
storms could make a mockery of a match. On one dramatic
December day in 1950 Freddie Brown declared England's first
innings at 68 for seven (Mutton not out eight) and Hassett
counter-declared at 32 for seven (Bailey four for 22, Bedser
three for nine) setting England "only" 193 to
win. Hutton, going in at number five made 62 not out, but
the rest of England could score only 60. This was one of
the times when, minutes after the storm broke, the stumps
were swept away on a tide of water and floated to the boundary
fence. On another occasion Sid Barnes, that incorrigible
practical joker, took advantage of a hailstorm at the Gabba
to amaze the England team still further by mounting the
balcony above their dressing-room and dropping an enormous
block of ice purloined from the refrigerator!
English cricketers tend to be suspicious of Australian "curators",
as the Australian groundsmen are called, and the feeling
is reciprocal. There was some evidence that the pitch was
illegally watered during the Melbourne Test of 1954-55,
although after The Melbourne Age had published Percy Beames's
story the allegation was denied. Australians, similarly,
were convinced that the Headingley pitch was especially
prepared for Derek Underwood in 1972, the occasion when
fusereum disease spread on the Test strip because it had
been covered during the wet weather preceding the match.
On the 1974-75 tour England's players were firmly of the
opinion that more grass than usual was being left on the
Test pitches to suit the speed of Lillee and Thomson. The
truth is that, at least in recent years, it has become common
practice for groundsmen to sfiave off all the grass if the
home sides have no fast bowling strength, as England have
not had in recent years, and to leave it on if they have.
The most blatant example of this was at Calcutta in 1976-77
where the groundstaff were clearly to be seen, on the day
before the game, down on their hands and knees rubbing out
the last vestiges of grass with what appeared to be scrubbing
brushes. If it was intended that the pitch should help the
Indian spinners the plan was misconceived because it gave
more assistance to England's faster bowlers, and the greater
guile of Indian spinners on good pitches was wasted.
The most recent addition to Test match grounds is the Recreation
Ground at St. John's, Antigua, where most of the hard work
is done by prisoners from the gaol which stands on one side
of what only a few years ago looked no more than a village
ground. Hence the anguished reply made a few years ago to
an English journalist's question: "How many years have
you been looking after this pitch?" "Five years,
man, and I've still got five more to do". The fact
that the Antigua pitch is so good merely proves what any
groundsman, however humble, will tell you, namely that it
takes very hard labour to prepare a good pitch. Rolling
is the essential base and it cannot be skimped, although
the bent backs which always marked groundsmen in the old
days were gained more from constantly searching their turf
(outfields as well as pitches) for weeds and lifting each
one that appeared out of the ground with a knife. Nowadays
fertilizers and weedkillers take some of the backache out
of the job, but although the end product may look prettier
it is seldom so effective. It is because they work so hard
that groundsmen do not appreciate complaining cricketers.
It was said of one of the Welsh county grounds, which shall
be nameless, that the players were in far greater danger
of catching silicosis than the miners. John Warr, indeed,
remarked of a Welsh pitch that it needed a hoover not a
mower. It was at Ebbw Vale that Norman Hill of Nottinghamshire,
inspecting the pitch with Tony Lewis before the toss, remarked
of the top dressing: "Blimey, that's good-quality coal".
In the same match, which the bowlers enjoyed more than the
batsmen, Lewis angrily censored Peter Walker for getting
out to a careless shot. "It's alright for you",
replied Walker (who was born in South Africa), "but
when I tapped that pitch with my bat a moment ago, somebody
tapped back from down below!"
You cannot play cricket without a pitch and thank goodness
for the men—paid or voluntary—who prepare them. Theirs is
one of the game's more thankless tasks yet it has its consolations
and, no doubt, days when all the effort seems to have been
worthwhile—when a pitch gives some help to the faster bowlers
early in the game, permits plenty of runs for stroke-playing
batsmen and some turn at the end for the spinners. Then
everyone happily leaves the field of play: except, of course,
the groundsman. The bowler's footmarks must be resown and
another strip prepared. What a game!
Reproduced with the kind permission of J. M. Dent &
Sons Ltd. |
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