T20 World Cup Pitch Report
What's happening with the Nassau County, New York, pitch?
Heinrich Klaasen barely kept the ball out. It was a 151km/h yorker from Matheesha Pathirana. He lost his balance as he did so. However, he was able to take a single from the delivery. Two balls earlier, the Sri Lankan slinger had attempted a 148km/h yorker. Klaasen inside-edged that one onto his pads and took a single.
Those two were not the worst deliveries Klaasen faced in the innings as he scored an unbeaten 19 off 22 to lead the Proteas to their first win of the 2024 T20 World Cup. The innings was the antithesis of how Klaasen has played T20 cricket in the past two years. In 2022 and 2023, the 32-year-old struck a boundary every 4.4 deliveries in T20Is, while boasting a healthy strike rate of 157.8.
Against Sri Lanka, Klaasen struck two boundaries, a single four and a single six, in his 22-ball stay. His strike rate of 86.36 is what you would expect from him in First Class cricket, not T20 cricket. But, he wasn’t batting on a standard T20 pitch, if anything, it looked like he was batting on a spicy Wanderers track on day one of a Test match. One delivery jagged and struck Aiden Markram on the box. He wasn’t the only batter to be hit on the body.
The pitch had everything, two deliveries on the same length would behave differently, one would have pace and carry, while the next would have tennis ball bounce. Then there were balls keeping low, one from Maheesha Theekshana just about rolled on the ground. Variable bounce and seam movement have been the hallmarks of the Nassau County Stadium’s pitches.
Before making a name for himself as a T20 gladiator, Klaasen cradled dreams of playing Test cricket for South Africa, so much so that he pushed himself to realise the dream of playing the in format. “I remember when I was captain of the Titans for the 4-day stuff, but I only got there after day one Tea time because I was in the T20 squad or the one-day stuff,” Klaasen shared with me a couple of years ago.
It wasn’t surprising when stats showed that he boasted a shot control percentage of 82 in his knock. Klaasen reached into his red ball cricket bag of tricks.
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South Africa and Sri Lanka were not the only teams to get a spicy Test match pitch. India got one too when they went up against Ireland. This was not Damian Hough’s intention when he constructed the pitches at the Nassau County Cricket Stadium in New York. His goal was to produce pitches with consistent bounce where batters could play their shots. So what went wrong?
Generally, it takes about two weeks to construct a pitch. After that, a pitch requires between a year and 18 months to settle. “You can domestic cricket after about 12 months, nothing less, and then about 18 months for international cricket. That is how we do it here in South Africa,” shared Evan Flint, the former Wanderers Stadium curator.
A cricket pitch is a living organism and one of the main components of that ecosystem is the grass. In the year to 18 months it takes the pitch to settle, the newly planted grass has enough time to grow its roots through the soil. “When it establishes itself, the grass is then capable of taking the stress of being rolled and played on and then recovering,” Flint explained.
The other reason for such a long period is that pitches are constructed using soil with 50% or higher clay content. These surfaces take a long time to level out. Early on in their lives, the roller will cause undulations in the pitch, which often results in uneven bounce.
The pitches at Nassau County Cricket Stadium are barely a year old. Hough, the curator, and his team were given the green light to begin construction of the pitches in September 2023. Hough was picked because of his experience in curating drop-in pitches. The Adelaide Oval curator creates drop-in pitches for the Adelaide Oval regularly. The difference was now that his pitches were not going to travel a few kilometres within Adelaide, but across seven states from Florida to New York.
After building the trays in Australia, Hough travelled to Florida where they began pitch construction in December 2023. From then onwards, they picked the best materials they could find. They used a type of soil normally used on baseball mounds, it has a 60% clay content. The soil is similar to what they use in Australia. For the grass, they used Bermuda grass, known as Couch grass in Australia. They picked a variety called Tahoma 31.
“Curating a pitch is not an exact science. All you can do as a curator is follow all the right steps for the best possible outcome and hope for the best,” Flint shared.
And while Hough has done all the right things for the production of a pitch that allows for a balanced contest between bat and ball, it looks like his pitches were not allowed enough time to settle. They are barely six months old.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time… - CS