Acclaim for MCC Staff

MCC's Head Groundsman, Mick Hunt, and his team have been praised for the quality of the pitches they produced for both first-class and one-day cricket at Lord's during the 2006 season.

In the England & Wales Cricket Board's "Groundsman of the Year" awards, announced today, Lord's was the runner-up in the category for first-class matches; it also earned commended status for its one-day pitches.

The new MCC Secretary & Chief Executive, Keith Bradshaw, said:

"At Lord's, the 2006 season was a particularly long and busy one. The ground staged an enormous amount of cricket and an extremely wide range of matches - from the one-day village final to two five-day Tests.

It took a great deal of skill, and a tremendous amount of sheer hard work, to ensure that Lord's could host such a huge quantity of cricket on such high quality pitches - from our first match of the season, in mid-April, to the final fixture, five months later.

I am delighted that Mick Hunt and his team have earned this acclaim from the ECB. It's been hard-earned - and it's very

well-deserved indeed."

Although its square is not particularly large, Lord's hosted 31 fixtures - which included thirteen international matchdays - during the 2006 cricket season.


Full details of the "Groundsman of the Year" awards are available from Imogen Gaunt, at the ECB, on 020 7432 1253.

For more information, please contact:

Pictures: Provided by 'Polly Hancock' and Anthony Devlin / MCC'.

Iain Wilton MCC's Head of Communications & Public Affairs 020 7616 8520 0794 1049205