New S.C.G. pitch

Press, 10 January 1986, Page 20

New S.C.G. pitch

NZPA staff correspondent Sydney The infamous Sydney Cricket Ground pitch, which helped rob New Zealand of a clean sweep in the threetest series against Australia late last year, will be an entirely new proposition next season. The pitch will undergo an sAustlB,ooo ($26,500) facelift immediately after the end of the rugby league season to eliminate the sub-stand-ard minefield which has of late been a spinners’ paradise. The main reason for this, especially early in the season, has been the damage caused by a winter of rugby league and Australian Rules football. Immediately after the

league grand final this year, almost the entire square used for first-class wickets will be skimmed off to a depth of 10cm, the mud and dead grass dumped, and a new surface laid. The couch grass for the 8000 square foot centre is already being grown at a suburban turf farm and it will be trucked in in refrigerated vans as soon as the old surface has been scraped clean, and laid on the prepared table. The idea of the refrigerated vans is to keep the grass green during its transport from the turf farm to the S.C.G.

The S.C.G. curator, Peter Leroy, said that the league grand final will be played on the last Sunday of September, and the new green

wicket table would be complete by the end of October. The new test strip will get its baptism in the first test against England on January 2, 1987. It has taken Leroy until the just-completed test between Australia and India to approach a pitch that plays something close to true, and he said that while the grass cover was uneven and the wicket did crack, it did not break up as in the past.

One experimental strip of couch grass has -already been laid and will be used for the one-day international between Australia and New Zealand on January 29.