Out-of-season coaching in a marquee is nothing uncommon – loads of counties do the identical. The innovation at Loughborough is the surfaces, conceived to present England groups extra publicity to circumstances present in locations like Australia and South Africa.
The senior males occur to be touring these two nations over the next two winters. The ladies, Lions and Younger Lions are all in South Africa now, or heading there quickly. There’s a longer-term aspect, too, with the hope England gamers will profit for a few years to return.
Tempo and bounce is as indigenous to the UK as a polar bear. Ben Stokes requested for such surfaces throughout final yr’s Ashes, although Mitchell Starc was extra on the cash when he mentioned: “I do not assume you get quick wickets in England”.
Even earlier than Stokes’ request, there was a plan in place to make the online pitches in Loughborough a cricketing science experiment. Andy McKay, the ECB’s pitch and grounds advisor, had “12 months staring into the void” till surfaces have been constructed greater than two years in the past.
McKay’s problem was clay. Quick, bouncy pitches normally come from a soil with a excessive clay content material, but clay is not any good friend of the ryegrass that grows on this nation.
Clay additionally cracks. The fast Waca in Perth, Australia, has a excessive clay content material, however produced cracks sufficiently big for a small youngster to fall into. Not perfect for the security of a apply pitch that can be used again and again. Only for good measure, there was additionally a want for McKay’s pitches to take spin early.
“We examined completely different sand shapes, discovering a sand that may give us hardness, combining components of clay, silt and particle distribution to ensure that we had a high-binding energy soil,” says McKay.
The end result, if we wish to get actually geeky, is a mixture of clay, pure sand and sandy loam. “We have arrived at one thing just a little bit funky,” he says. “For need of a greater description, it’s a designer cricket soil.”
Glen Chapple, with almost 1,000 first-class wickets to his identify and a fast-bowling marketing consultant for the Lions, describes the pitches as “fast”. McKay believes the method could be repeated at a serious floor if a county is keen to undergo the method.
“There is a chance for a venue in the event that they wished to do one thing a bit completely different,” he says.
