Pitch Report - The Wanderers
There was turn and bounce, why?
I went to learn about pitches, the Wanderers Stadium pitches. If you had questions on why it had turn and bounce or just want to read about pitches, read on.
Days after a Test match, the pitch is unrecognisable. A scarification machine has been run through the pitch and various acts of decompacting have been performed - hollow-tining, drilling, spiking and verti-draining. A couple of weeks in, a load of grass is brought in from the nursery. Cynodon grass is the preferred grass for pitches in South Africa, and skaaplaas is the variety of choice at the Wanderers. That load is used to cover the bare patches in preparation for the next Test match.
The grass is nurtured and maintained at a height of between 8 to 10mm - a 5 o’clock shadow - over the next 11 or so months. During a Test match, it is cut down to between 4 and 6mm. This is an annual exercise on Pitch number 7, the designated Test pitch at the Wanderers Stadium. This is the Wanderers’ equivalent to Wimbledon’s Center Court.
Pitch 7 was the centre of attention during the second Test against the West Indies because the Proteas had picked two spinners. It was the first time in 37 matches that South Africa selected two frontline spinners for a Wanderers Test. The last time it happened was during the 1965 Test, against England, when orthodox left-armer Atholl McKinnon and offspinner Harry Bromfield both played.
There were murmurs that the bounce and turn that was expected was by design. Evan Flint has a theory about why the Wanderers pitch is behaving a little differently. The theory is different from what the murmurs were suggesting.
Flint has a ready smile. It’s disarming. One might think that is his big weapon against mole crickets and termites that can be a pest in the outfield and the fungus that can bedevil the pitch. The Wanderers’ head groundsman’s smile is known to disappear when the pitch has low bounce. Flint prefers groundsman over curator - curator is just a fancy title and he is not fancy.
Groundsman keeps him closer to what brought him into the trade - a love for gardening. When he was younger, Flint thought he could be the next big star. But midway into his teens, it began to dawn on him that he wasn't going to be the next Jonty Rhodes. He didn't have the otherworldly talent that is necessary for one to carve a career as a professional cricketer.
When he was 16 his school held a thing called ‘work experience week.’ Flint asked his teachers if he could go to Kingsmead stadium, and they agreed. He hit it off with Wilson Ngobese upon arrival. Ngobese had risen from general labourer - he joined in 1976 - an Induna, assistant groundsman. In Flint, Ngobese saw someone who could walk the same path he had, so he took him under his wing.
Over the next two years, Flint helped out at Kingsmead after school. Ngobeni couldn’t pay the youngster, so he gave him tickets to matches. At 18 Flint joined the staff on a full-time basis. In late 2003, Flint found a way to concurrently do the two things he loved the most - play cricket and tend to pitches. He spent four years as a groundsman for a few clubs in Hampshire, Bedfordshire and Norwich.
He worked on the ground in the mornings, coached kids in the afternoon and played cricket on the weekends. It was all cricket and he loved it. “You didn’t have to be a great player to be an overseas pro, you just had to be good enough for club cricket,” he says.
Flint rejoined the Kingsmead team in 2007. The next year he joined the Newlands team. 10 years later, he moved to the highveld. It’s safe to say Flint knows a thing or two about pitches. The task of maintaining the Wanderers Stadium’s outfield and its complex 12 pitches falls on him and his crew.
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“Let me start by making it clear that a turning pitch is not a bad pitch. In the same vein, not all pitches that favour pace bowlers are good pitches,” said Flint as warmed into his theory.
The Wanderers’ pitches are not associated with turn. The soil used for the pitch makes for pitches that the highveld is renowned for, fast bowlers’ paradise. It is extracted from a farm in De Hoek and is preferred because it is a natural soil with 58% clay content. “It gives you the right compaction. It also gives you the cracking,” says Flint.
Flint is adamant that there is nothing he and his minions have intentionally done to slow down the Wanderers’ pitch. Though the pitch is man-made, it is a living thing. All living things slow down as they grow older, he adds.
The older a pitch is, the more organic thatch it has. The more organic thatch a pitch has the less it compacts well. The less a pitch compacts well, the less it remains true to its character. It offers less pace. It also develops a tennis ball bounce, so it doesn’t necessarily mean that it becomes slow and low. Older pitches generally dry out quicker, due to the organic thatch. They also get more variable bounce earlier than desired. In a nutshell, you get turn and bounce from older pitches.
Organic thatch refers to the layer of dead grass roots, stems and leaves that accumulate within the pitch over the years.
Pitch 7, the designated Test pitch, is more than 10 years old. Closer to 15 years old. It is safe to say the pitch has a lot of organic thatch. But, Pitch 7 is not the only Wanderers pitch behaving out of character. Spinners have been more successful than seamers in domestic first-class cricket at the Wanderers in the past three seasons. In that period, 4-Day Franchise Series Division One spinners have taken 60 wickets at 26.31 compared to 248 wickets at 28.95 by seamers.
Pitches 3, 4, 9 and 10 - the pitches used for 4-Day matches - are also around the same age as Pitch 7. A possible remedy to this might be to relay the pitches. Bring in new loads of soil and import a shipment of grass from Top Crop in the KZN Midlands. But, recent history suggests that might not be the answer.
The Wanderers’ designated ODI and T20I/SA20 pitches, pitches 5 and 6 offered turn in recent matches. They are also the newest pitches at the Wanderers. Pitch 6 was relaid in 2018 and Pitch 5 was redone in 2020. Flint is hesitant to include these pitches in the conversation because he has a question mark on their preparation.
However, this should not be taken to mean that the Wanderers is on its way to becoming the next Mohali or Ahmedabad. In December 2022, four 50-over matches were played on Pitch 4, they did not turn at all - Pitch 4 is quite old. Under normal circumstances, a Wanderers pitch offers turn by the third match. Instead, in December 2022, Pitch 4 just seemed to get better for batting and didn’t offer much turn.
Pitch 4 was an outlier. “It was a rarity,” says Flint.
Is there a chance global warming and climate change could be affecting the Wanderers? Models show that Johannesburg weather has been changing, getting warmer and is expected to continue on that trajectory. This might cause pitches to dry out quicker. Climate affects pitch behaviour, Flint concedes.
However, if there is any sign that Flint and his team will fight against age, climate and everything else to ensure that Wanderers pitches do not behave out of character, it is Pitch 4.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time… - CS
