Cricket: Hamilton pitch controversy grows

The saga over Hamilton's Westpac Park pitch took another twist yesterday as turf culture experts blasted the ground owners and the suggestion that it might be three years until international cricket returned.

A botched pitch-laying exercise in April led to a sub-standard surface this season, culminating in a farcical one-dayer for the World XI match, and the loss of all further games this season.

However, on a day in which recriminations continued to fly over the cause and effects of the setback, experts have accused the Hamilton City Council ground-owners of penny-pinching, and have rubbished suggestions of a subsequent three-year hiatus.

Stadium management chairwoman Glenda Saunders suggested this week it was possible that it might be two or three years before the big boys returned.

Sports Turf Institute spokesman Alex Glasgow told the Herald yesterday it was inconceivable that the new block would take that long to be ready for international cricket, and that it was out of step with current practice.

Glasgow pointed to the example of Napier's McLean Park and New Plymouth's Pukekura Park, which had both undergone major refurbishments last autumn, and were now two of the country's best-performing surfaces.

The Westpac Park pitch reconstruction is planned to start next week, and Glasgow said if all the correct processes and techniques were used, there was no question that it should be ready for next summer.

"If it takes three years before you can play international cricket on it, then you're doing something wrong," he said.

The manager of the institute's agronomy service, Glasgow said his organisation had assisted with the deep-cultivation of the pitch blocks at Pukekura Park and McLean Park, which was a similar process to the Westpac Park reconstruction.

And he said it was common practice here and in Australia to have a reconstructed block ready for international action within three to four months if the correct procedures were employed.

Glasgow's comments were backed up by former Eden Park curator Richard Winter, who is now in charge of the WACA ground in Perth.

"We've had instances where we've played on a newly constructed block within 12 weeks," he said from Perth yesterday. "Three years seems an awfully long time."

Glasgow said the institute would have jumped at the chance to assist Westpac Park groundsman Karl Johnson when he constructed the pitch block last year, but that their services were not required.

In contrast, the semi-subsidised turf service was used heavily by other ground owners, including those in charge of the main venues at Dunedin, Napier, New Plymouth, Gisborne and Whangarei.

Reconstruction on the ill-fated block will apparently involve the removal of about half of the topsoil, and the use of a sheep-foot roller to re-build the pitch with layer after layer of densely compacted clay.

However, Herald sources said last night that the sheep-foot roller was nothing new to New Zealand and should have been used when initially laying the block, particularly as the ground was in demand.

Glasgow said it was common knowledge that if you wanted a pitch of international standard quickly, you had to compact the soil at the point of construction, layer-by-layer, to gain the sufficient level of density.

"If you don't do it that way, you end up with, well you end up with what we've got now."

Northern Districts' chief executive David Cooper said last night he didn't want to comment on Saunders' three-year remark, but hoped that it represented the "extreme end" of the prognosis.