Maintenance of cricket ground during rainy season

 MAINTENANCE OF CRICKET GROUND DURING RAINY SEASON

Cricket ground is a place where cricket matches are played. Cricket ground consists of cricket field, pavilion, viewing area, commentators' area, etc.

Cricket pitch is a 22 yards strip of dimension 20.12 m by 3.05 m that lies in the center of the field between the wickets. Its the board which decides if the pitch is ready to have a match or not by consulting pitch curators.

 The part of cricket ground that has most threat of getting destroyed is the cricket pitch. So during rainy season maximum focus is given to the pitches of cricket ground. Maintenance depends on if that ground is still hosting matches or not. This article will explain about maintenance in general.

Ground Covers : For any groundsmen belonging to any sports in the world pitch covers are very important. Talking about cricket groundsmen, ground covers play a very vital role. Its the ground cover that helps ground in surviving from rain. Ground covers play a very important role in saving ground and pitches from rain. So ground covers are used whenever it rains and also during night of winters due to fog. However ground covers are of different types and different ground covers are used depending on the need. For example, flat sheet pitch covers, rain cover flat sheet, Bio cell inflatable cricket pitch covers, etc.

Underpinning method : During wet weather holes are made by the bowlers and batsmen that are needed to be dried and cleaned out.Underpinning is actually a repairing project where all the holes made by bowlers and batsmen are repaired without disturbing the whole are around that whole. It can also be understood as turfing the affected part again.

Foot marks nursing : Areas where batsmen take stance and guard and bowlers deliver the balls are the most affected areas. Those area are the most damage prone areas especially in wet weather. So nursing of foot marks becomes very necessary. This nursing can be done using various methods depending on the damage. Some examples of such methods are sweeping, light top dressing, light forking, etc.

Rolling : Generally rolling for 7 minutes is done before the beginning of match in normal condition. But in case of match after rain, light weight rollers are used for rolling of pitch so that water gets absorbed as soil has both moisture and air in it. Rollers are not only used for rolling pitches but ground also.

Aquasoakers : In order to maintain the ground during rainy seasons advanced machines are used to absorb excess water from the ground. Some examples of those machines are grass sopper, cricket ground sopper, soaker, aquasoakers, super sopper, etc.

Mowing : During rainy seasons grass grow faster than any other season. Those grass start creates hindrances in drainage of water that destroys the ground and especially pitches at large. So to save ground getting destroyed mowing is done. In cricket, mowing simply means cutting of grass that best suits the playing conditions.

These were some of the measures that can been taken to maintain the cricket ground during rainy seasons.