Cricket: Doubt cast on Westpac Park wicket

With the first home test of the summer less than a month away, doubts have already been cast on the suitability of the Westpac Park wicket.

Players and Auckland coach Mark O'Donnell have raised concerns about the state of the Hamilton wicket, which is set to host the Sri Lankans on January 15.

New Zealand Cricket operations manager John Reid, through a New Zealand Cricket spokesman said: "The pitch has been checked and cleared in Hamilton and no replacement will be needed."

But Players' Association executive manager Heath Mills has heard several concerns recently about the readiness of Westpac Park.

"The feedback I've had from players is that they would be very surprised if Westpac Park was ready to host a test in four weeks time," Mills said.

Groundsman Karl Johnson said the weather in Hamilton this summer has made preparation "extremely difficult".

Johnson shipped up a trainload of Waikari clay from Canterbury at the end of last season to replace the naike soil which proved too inconsistent.

He said he had selected a strip for the test and would begin rolling it once the Northern Districts-Sri Lanka warm-up one-dayer was completed on Thursday.

"But it has been bloody difficult," Johnson said. "We've had to prove that the block has come through the winter and have had a warrant of fitness passed on it.

"Waikari always takes a couple of years to settle. It will get better with age and for this test match we're just looking to get a consistent quality to it. It's not going to be startling and up around the nostrils, but it should be consistent."

After behaving adequately, if a little inconsistently, for the first two days of the opening State Championship match, the wicket started going up and down on the third.

Northern Districts had no answer to medium pace duo Kerry Walmsley and Tama Canning, finding themselves 10-4, before recovering slightly to 92 all out.

Auckland coach O'Donnell conceded he would be worried if he was in New Zealand Cricket's shoes.

"By day three there was enough variable bounce to cause problems. Those problems will be magnified in international cricket.

"Day three is too early for the sort of stuff we saw," O'Donnell said.

But Johnson said: "That was to be expected on a day-three pitch and was nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn't prepared fully the way we would have liked, but we had so much rain."

During last year's Hamilton test against South Africa, a "crater" appeared on the wicket, nearly forcing match referee Clive Lloyd to call off the match.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY