Our club are looking to expand and I'm trying to advise them on how many games our 6 strip square can cope within a season.
I'm working on the basis of each strip being used twice before any repairs and then once repaired each strip being left for a month before the next game is played on it.
To me this then works out at a maximum of 12 games in any 4/5 week period and hence about 48 games in a season.
All comments on my calculations / methods would be appreciated.
Greg
22 Sep 2009 by Charles Johnson
When doing its pitch survey via the county boards the ECB assumed 5-6 matches per pitch. If you have rock hard flat surfaces with covers etc then that is probably fair, but at club level they get thrashed in wet conditions or get so dry they crumble.
So for me 5-6 full matches would be high. I have tried and failed in the past to rest and return old pitches within the same season, it depends too heavily on weather and proper respect from the players. Several posts on here this year have confirmed the difficulty experienced groundsmen have had refurbishing tracks within the season. So, I use pitches until they are worn out, which means keeping them alive for 2-3 weeks on the trot.
As a result I get an average of 4-5 matches per track, this year was a bumper one. On 10 full-size pitches this year I produced 48 matches, some of which were short-format, with no wash-outs. In fact, I had a couple of games left in one track, and if needed could have maybe re-introduced an old track.
For once this year the quality of pitches held up for the 300-400 overs, almost entirely due to the relatively warm dry weather for most of the season here in Surrey. Mind you some of the older ones were rather dusty around the creases. And next year could be an unlucky one.
So, for planning purposes I reckon on the equivalent of 4 100-over matches per track, and beyond that the club are warned against expecting good performance every time.
How long is a piece of string? There are too many variables involved to put a figure on it.
I use the prep once, thrash em then leave em method. My tracks will comfortably do 4 games and some will do 6 full adult games. That's then followed by two or three adult net sessions. By that point they're well and truly ready for a rest.
I used one track on the use- rest- return method this season - one of my best tracks which was used for our first ever age-group county matches. It was great for the first game but I was not particularly happy with it second time around. It played fine, but looked less good than I would want. The gap was 5 weeks but the repairs had very weak grass (lots of it, but no root strength) and 5 weeks after being heavily stressed bu cutting to 3mm the grass over the track looked average. Next season I will try to get county matches in clusters and go back to my tried and tested method.
Wet weather doesn't worry me too much - if you have enough grass plant density and good roots then only the foot holes will tear up badly - and these can always be repaired. Pitch and skid marks roll out. I had one track used for three successive adult matches in damp conditions that went on to complete a further two 80 - 90 over matches in perfectly good shape.
Get your soil right, your plant density up and don't shave to bare earth. You will really struggle to get almost 50 matches out of 6 tracks with this method though.
The ciderman rolls
22 Sep 2009 by bezza
played the last game of the season on sunday,was the 87th game played this year on a 9 wkt square,should really be 8 wkt but i cut at 9ft centers because of the matches i have to provide for. 3 adult teams,7 junior teams plus occasional sunday friendlies and usually 2 or 3 junior representative games,makes for a busy year
Finished season last Saturday. Matches played 103, matches off 10, first team practices on square 15. Number of pitches, 21. Bit like a desert now !! All should be sown, top dressed and fertilised by friday.
Thanks for your responses.
The biggest problem I've had this season is with the batsmen marking their guard position which after a couple of games have produced a hole about an inch deep and about 9 inch radius.
Our square isn't very hard and the weather early in the season was such that my repairs enabled each strip to recover within 4 weeks and take two games again.At the mid/end of the season howover the relative lack of rainfall meant that the repairs just didn't take and I could only use the wicket once.
jonytaylor if you can get 4 or 6 games I'm guessing your square is pretty hard.If not how are you managing repair work please.
bezza with you I'm also guessing your square must be pretty hard to have the amount of games you indicate.
Greg
Greg use the search box at the top of the page, repairing foot ends and batsmans marks has been discussed in detail, there are tried, trusted and highly reliable ways of doing this.
I used track number 1 of my nine track square for our last League game on Saturday and the previous 2 weekends as well, I had previously used it for 2 weekends earlier in the season (April 25th/26th & May 2nd/3rd), so managed to get 10 games out of it.
Saturday we totalled 189-8 off 40 overs, bowled them out for 102 off 26, finished fourth in our League 11 points behind the winners.
Ground is starting to slowly turn brown it is the middle of summer of course, rain needed to do renovations or some more watering from moi.
What goes around, comes around
23 Sep 2009 by Zippy
48 games sounds like a lot for a 6 wicket square.
We have 10 pitches on a Kaloam based square which gets very firm and has a fairly high wear tolerance level.
This year we staged 30 weekend matches consisting of 90 overs. Then there are about half a dozen net sessions to fit, five 20-20 junior matches, six 20-20 ladies matches and twelve senior 20-20 evening matches.
Having a 10 pitch square and 22 week season, it makes sense to try and use the same pitch for a two weeks, with the last two pitches of the season in August/September being used for three weekends when the evening matches have stopped.
As Jon says they are used until trashed - Kaloam is the ideal surface for this kind of treatment. After use, the pitch is given a severe rake with Sisis combi-rake to remove any debris and re-cut. It is not used again until the following season. The ends are levelled, re-seeded and covered for 10 days with black germination sheets and then fed with a 9-7-7 feed and then left to recover.
The pitch plan I use never alters year on year so every pitch has roughly 12 months to recover. If we get a wet spell (such as July) I will try and solid tine them and brush in some loam to improve density and also verticut/combirake them every two weeks or so to keep surface thatch to a bare minimum. The Ryegrass on the square seems to respond well to this treatment providing it is fed every six weeks, and the POA is also managed as well.
Hole repairs have been discussed elsewhere, but here's my method.
Sweep out all loose stuff. Dampen surface of hole (not too wet!!). Go to other end and repeat (allows time for dampening to work). Fill with moistened loam (again, not too wet). Hand pummel to bind together then roll. Dry loam can be spinkled to help with rolling - a bit like using flour when rolling pastry. Do this no later than night before game.
Dry loam should not be used for hole repairs if you intend to play again. It just doesn't bind together. IMO, holes less than about 1/4" deep are difficult to repair as there's usually not enough fresh loam to get a good binding block. You can try, but it often works poorly. In this case I will often dampen surface and spread dry loam which I then roll in. When shuuting track down I will repair holes with dry loam as I believe, right or wrong, that the less solid repair helps root penetration.
The ciderman rolls
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