CAN ASTRO PITCHES SAVE RECREATIONAL CRICKET?

You may have thought you had seen the end of artificial pitches along with Adam Ant and the Berlin Wall, but they are making a comeback, reports Huw Turbervill

You have to know what to look for. When I walk my dog in Carshalton park, there is a piece of matting. About 22 yards long. It is dirty and has been drained of colour. Grass is pushing up at the sides. I hazard a guess 99 per cent of people would not know what it is.

On a regular route home, I also notice something that makes me sad. Just before East Croydon station, to the left, is a vast green open space, and at the edge are tangled nets, long past their sell-by date. Discarded: a curio no doubt for puzzled train travellers.

Most town parks and schools had cricket nets in the 1980s and 90s. I know as I used to use them with friends. And then they were abandoned. Artificial pitches went out of fashion, along with shoulder pads and mullets.

Cricket struggles to compete with football. We all know that. It is still probably up there with rugby union as the No.2 and 3 in the British public sporting consciousness, but competition is fierce: not just from other sports, but from iPhones, Xboxes, Snapchat and the like.

Hold on a minute, though: I am hearing that the astro is back! As part of the drive to give cricket mass appeal again, with All Stars Cricket at the forefront, and participation levels so key when it comes to Sport England funding, the next generation of non-turf pitches (NTPs) has been developed.

Lewis Denmark is All Stars Champion/Participation and Retention Officer for the Norfolk Cricket Board (as well as being a batsman in their Minor Counties side). “The technology of the pitches is now at a level where they replicate fairly closely the performance of a turf wicket,” he tells The Cricketer. “They are not built on concrete as they were. They are now known as ‘dynamic’ surfaces, mainly built on layers of especially laid aggregates, then with shock pads and topped with the artificial grass surface. There are six ECB-approved system installers used. The ECB’s aim is to increase the accessibility to cricket match facilities to more casual players and teams (for example Last Man Stands, businesses, friendly teams, the British Asian community, and pub leagues). This links to the ‘More Play’ part of the Cricket Unleashed strategy.

“We are mainly geared at present to local authority sites, partly as they are public access and partly as councils are running down their turf wicket stock due to costs of maintenance. These Non Turf Pitches will allow cricket to continue at these sites. The ECB have funded a selection of counties for 2017. Most sites involve numerous installations at one large park site, but ours is different with multiple providers and venues. This is most likely to replicate the situation in most areas in the country.

“It is a revenue-generation option for councils with the potential to increase bookings significantly without incurring additional maintenance or staff costs. Work is still needed to develop the number of these pitches across the country, not only at LA sites but also at schools and clubs. Added to this is the importance of leagues accepting that at certain levels of the recreational game the use of Non-Turf wickets will be necessary in the future as these will often provide a better standard of play than a turf wicket in certain circumstances.

“A typical non-turf pitch now costs about £8,000-10,000 depending on specifications.”

One club making great use of their artificial surface is Hollinsend Methodist CC. Chairman Richard Wells wrote to say: “We are continuing to grow when other Sheffield clubs sadly fall by the wayside. Some years ago now I was fortunate to win a non-turf pitch courtesy of a competition in your magazine. I thought you would be interested to know the great season we have had and the role you have had in helping us develop our juniors to a title-winning team. Without our non-turf pitch we wouldn’t be able to play the volume of cricket, in part as the lower half of our square brings houses and gardens dangerously into range of modern bats! Taller ball-stop netting is next on our list after the double-lane practice facility we installed last year, thanks to a Sport England grant.”

In the Yorkshire & Derbyshire Cricket League, Hollinsend 1st XI were champions, and also won the Brian Winston Premier Cup. The 2nd XI were fourth in Division Two, and the 3rd XI were third in Division Five and Junior Cup winners. In the Mansfield & District League, the Sunday XI took Section 3 North, while in the Sheffield Midweek Alliance League (the club were one of only two with two teams in the league) the midweek 1st XI were third in Division A and the 2nd XI were fifth in Division C. In the Ben Jessop Sheffield Junior League, the under-18s finished fifth; the 15s were section runners-up; the 13s were section winners; the 11s blues were section joint winners; the 11s reds were fourth in their section; and the 9s were section winners (undefeated) and runners-up in the All Sheffield Area Final. It seems there is nothing artificial about that roll call of success.

(P.S ... Stephen Mann contacted me about the East Croydon nets. They were installed as a temporary facility. He was a councillor, and helped have them moved to John Fisher Cricket Club.)

MORE FROM THE CRICKET: Monday's Gossip