Dry Cricket pitches - Parched, Dusty & Dangerous
By Tanya Aldred
Remember Sabina Park 1998? England 17 for three, bandaged fingers everywhere, the Test called off after an hour because of the dangerous pitch?
It couldn’t happen here. Or could it? As the UK experiences its warmest summer on record, on the back of the driest spring for 100 years, with four heatwaves blasting the country, and a fifth on the horizon in September, cricket fields are parched, dusty and, increasingly, dangerous.
In mid-August, BBC Somerset commentator Harry Everett was hit in the face while playing at Butleigh, a West of England Premier League club, Glastonbury Tor rising majestically in the background. He was fielding at cover when the ball unexpectedly bounced into his face, the result was a black eye and blood everywhere.
“As soon as we turned up, we thought - this looks bobbly,” he says. “As we started warming up, the words 'lethal 'and 'dangerous' were being used. It was carnage, we were doing double, triple backing up, and I got whacked on the ankle from nowhere. And then I was hit in the face by a ball that wouldn't have come anywhere near if the ground wasn’t so hard.”
Everett was lucky to survive a serious car crash in New Zealand when he was 19, after driving off a 30m cliff. He suffered frontal lobe damage, so gave up football, rugby and hockey for the safer game of cricket, where there was less risk of a head injury.
It won’t be enough for Everett to put away his pads and bat, he’s a self-confessed cricket tragic. But dangerous sport isn’t for everyone. “It’s going to put people off cricket,” he says, “especially casual players. They’ll say, 'sod it, I’ll go and play golf.'”
Players are not just at risk from misbehaving balls. The hard ground and coarse grass makes fielding more dangerous too – with an increased chance of cuts, bruises and more serious injuries. While the risks from playing in extreme heat have been well documented by the recent Hit for Six report.
Though individual UK temperatures haven’t broken records this year, it has been an unusually warm, and dry summer, with the National Drought Group confirming that England is suffering from a “nationally significant water shortage”. From the skies, the UK has turned a kind of yellow. The Met Office cites: a dominant high-pressure system, dry spring soils reducing evaporative cooling, and a significant marine heatwave around the UK enhancing air temperatures. Climate change is also playing a role, with the UK warming at a rate of approximately 0.25°C per decade.”
“We were all saying, what an amazing summer we’ve had,” Everett says. “I’ve had just one game rained off in 65 matches, but this is the other side. Clubs are saying they will have to reseed and do extra renovations. I haven’t seen green grass for ages.”
What you can do:
There is a network of 100 pitch advisors attached to County Cricket Boards who can provide support to clubs:
https://www.ecb.co.uk/play/county-cricket-boards.
There is also some central funding available:
https://www.ecb.co.uk/play/club-support/club-funding
And if you're looking for inspiration from clubs who have invested in water storage, see Corbridge CC, winner of the 2023 Greenest Ground Award:
https://www.thenexttest.org/blog/green-spotlight-corbridge-cc.
