Former England Test cricketer Paul Taylor told IANS that, Everybody is an athlete now. Back in my day, there were a few people that weren't very athletic, but could bat and bowl. IPL has proven that there's a lot of talent across India. Building high-quality, long lasting cricket pitches is paramount to the accelerated development of the next generation of players and SIS grass stitched hybrid pitch system proves exactly that.
#Cricket #England #TestCricket #PaulTaylor #IANSInterview
#Cricket #England #TestCricket #PaulTaylor #IANSInterview
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00:00I think the game's changed massively. I made my first-class debut in 1984, which
00:10is, dare I say it, 40 years ago, and yeah, the game's evolved massively. Obviously
00:15the introduction of T20 cricket has changed it a huge amount, so you know, the
00:20way players bat, the way players bowl, I think the game's developed certainly for the
00:24better in terms of the skill levels and also the athleticism. Everybody is an
00:29athlete now. Back in my day there were a few people that weren't very athletic but
00:34could bat and bowl. So yeah, the game's changed massively and it's really exciting to
00:39see how it's going to develop in the future.
00:48Yeah, so pitch technology has evolved massively as well as the playing side and
00:52coaching side of the game. So, you know, there are different types of surfaces
00:56that you can play cricket on. CIS Pitches has put a guide together to
01:00clarify the situation on all of those. One of the biggest confusions is around
01:06hybrid pitches and drop-in pitches. So basically a drop-in pitch is a fully
01:12natural surface that's built in sort of movable trays that are lifted in and out
01:17of a cricket ground or a sports stadium, mainly used for multi sports. So if you've
01:24got different sports being played on different surfaces then different
01:27pitches are lifted in and out. But it's still a fully natural pitch with natural
01:32grass. There is no artificial fibres in those pitches. A hybrid pitch is one
01:38where there's fibres, artificial fibres, are injected into the natural turf
01:43surface and effectively gives the profile of the soil and the grass
01:49strength and stability and that enables more play to take place. The pitch lasts
01:55longer, the pace and bounce will increase over time and effectively you can play
02:01up to three times the amount of cricket on the same pitch than ordinarily you
02:05would. So, for example, if you would ordinarily play five T20 games on one
02:10pitch with a stitched hybrid CIS grass pitch you could play up to 15 times,
02:16sorry, up to 15 games on the same pitch with minimal renovation work taking
02:22place in between. So it's a benefit for the curators because they can spend, you
02:27know, time rather than preparing three pitches for those 15 games, they only
02:31have to prepare one pitch for those 15 games. So there's lots of advantages of a
02:37hybrid surface. The prime one is that it's still 95% a natural turf pitch. So
02:44the playing characteristics fundamentally don't change. So the curator still has
02:50control over how he prepares the pitch. So he controls the amount of water, he
02:55controls the amount of rolling that takes place on it, he can
03:00control the amount of grass he leaves on it before play starts. So those
03:05characteristics can still be controlled. What it allows him to do though is less
03:11pressuration time and less renovation work after the game before it's ready to
03:16play again.
03:21Okay, so this is a representation of the profile of the soil. So this is ground
03:26level. So you can see there are thin fibres above the surface or an
03:31element of fibres. But most of the activity and most of the stitching is beneath the
03:35ground. So that is a stitching down to 90 mm depth. It's a beige fibre and we do
03:41different coloured yarns depending on the look of the pitch. So we can do a
03:45green yarn, a mixture of green and beige. But for the main stadiums in India we've
03:50been installing the beige yarn so it doesn't show up in the pitches. Below the
03:55ground the roots will grow around the fibre which anchors the fibres into
04:00place. They'll also grow deeper so it makes the grass plant healthier. There's
04:05a natural air space that exists around the fibres so what you'll find is water,
04:10nutrients, the air will get down to the roots of the grass a lot easier. So again
04:15it strengthens the grass plant and makes it a lot healthier. If you've got a
04:21healthier grass plant you get a better grass coverage across the whole pitch.
04:25And the fibres above the surface always sit underneath the grass plant. So when
04:31we install a pitch, if the curator for instance installs or cuts his pitches
04:36down to 5 mm as his finished cutting height for the pitch, we'll install the
04:41fibres and cut them off at 4 mm so it's always underneath the grass plant. So the
04:46grass is the first thing the ball will hit. It will not hit the fibres. The
04:52idea is that the playing characteristics of the pitch do not change because again it's
04:59reinforcing the fact that it's still 95% natural turf and there's only 5% fibre
05:05within the surface.
05:11So we've installed eight pitches at the HPCA stadium in Dherramshala. There's four on the
05:17main stadium site and then there's two each on each of the two practice areas.
05:21The pitches on the main stadium were used for practice for the two IPL games
05:27that were recently played there, for range hitting and for bowl throughs and the
05:33feedback initially was very very good. There was more pace, more bounce. The Indian
05:38players who used them didn't appreciate that they were hybrid pitches which is a
05:42good thing. A couple of the English players did notice because there were a
05:46couple of bare areas from a previous game that hadn't fully recovered and
05:50there were a few fibres that they could see. So Jonny Bairstow, Sam and Tom Curran, Liam
05:55Livingstone, they were playing in the different games there. They noticed it was a
05:58hybrid but the Indian players didn't. So that's our first installation. Mr Arun
06:05Vimal, he supported that initiative with us and he actually had a bat on one of the
06:11pitches during the press launch that we did there and he was
06:15supposed to be there for about 10 minutes but he actually batted for about an hour
06:18so he was obviously enjoying himself. We've also installed a pitch on the
06:23academy ground at the main stadium in Ahmedabad in Matera and that was
06:30installed more recently. It's not been used yet because obviously it's been
06:34monsoon season and there's no cricket being played so we're looking forward to
06:37see the first use of that one. We've got other installations planned in the HPCA
06:43area which will take place over the next few weeks and we've got lots of
06:47interest from around the country from the state associations that we've met
06:52with so there's a number of proposals on the table out there and we're hoping to
06:57install in more sort of major centres over the next few months.
07:06I think cricket is a growing sport across the world especially in the
07:10women and girls game and that's putting additional pressure on groundsmen
07:15and curators around the world. They haven't got enough grass pitches to
07:19cope with the demand. The hybrid pitches give you an easy solution to that
07:24without having to build new stadiums so this is where we see a big advantage for
07:31the association certainly in India. The amount of cricket is not going to get
07:35any less. The pressure on grounds is going to increase and hybrid pitches
07:41potentially through CIS pitches will improve that situation and give you the
07:46ability of coping with the demand for good pitches at the main stadiums
07:50and also in the local community because I think if we can provide good quality
07:56services for up-and-coming young cricketers in the academies, in the local
08:01cricket clubs, maybe in the school of colleges and universities around the
08:05country, it means that their talent development will be accelerated and it's
08:10a great example you know if you've got the IPL players playing on pitches or
08:15international white ball cricket being played on hybrid pitches and they can
08:19play on the same sort of surface as a 14 or 15 year old that could only be good
08:25for the game. The pitches have been approved by the ECB since 2019 for all
08:31white ball cricket in 2024 so this season they're being used for four-day
08:36county championship cricket as a trial to see how they react over a four-day
08:40period. Initial feedback has been really positive on that. It's not approved for
08:44Test match cricket yet but the ICC approved it for all white ball cricket
08:48in 2022 so it's got the right sort of approvals in place for it to be
08:53utilized at all levels within the game so hopefully it's something that will be
08:57of interest to the state associations and to the wider audience within the
09:01country.
09:06I think you've got a very good talent pool to choose from. I think you're in a
09:10very fortunate position. You know there's some great players, there's lots of
09:14experience in the squads and there's some very exciting up-and-coming talent
09:19coming through. You know the IPL has proven that there's a lot of talent
09:23across India. We now see more Indian players because of that tournament
09:27whereas previously we'd only see the sort of the three international teams
09:31coming overseas. So I think the IPL has got a great credit for
09:36bringing that to cricket and obviously every country in the world is
09:41trying to replicate it. So I think the Indian team, it's quite exciting times
09:46and hopefully they'll go from strength to strength and hopefully they'll start
09:50using some hybrid pitches as well.
09:56Bas ball's been revolutionary I think for English cricket. We have had some
10:02fantastic test matches being played. We've had some exciting test matches
10:06being played since it was introduced by Brendan McCullum and Ben Stokes and you
10:12know we see exciting play. We see four and a half, five, six runs and over in
10:17test match cricket which previously certainly in my day when I played was
10:20unheard of. We'd be lucky to score it two and over I think. So I think it's
10:25revolutionised test cricket. There are lots of critics out there that it's
10:30not you know the way to play and you should occupy the crease more. So I think
10:35personally there should be a balance struck between you know batting an
10:39amount of time, preserving your wicket to an extent but also continue with the
10:44excitement.
10:47you