Hybrid pitches draw mixed sentiments

Bengaluru: As innate as it might be for our species to want to alter nature in order to control it, there are some things we probably shouldn’t stick our fingers in. At least that’s what pitch curators reckon when it comes to the trend of hybridising pitches.

Of course, they have their biases, owing to their own relevance in the system, but they insist that tweaking the essence of a pitch in the name of progress will result in calamitous outcomes even if they seem promising at the start.

Since the dawn of cricket, curators have attempted to study the nature of pitches in order to forecast their behaviour. While some have found success in the matter, most haven’t, but that element of the unknown is what gives cricket spice. Some may argue that that’s where the romance lies. 

Evidently, it’s not a sentiment shared by everyone since they have historically looked to make ‘improvements’ to pitches to establish consistency by reducing variables.

Fast forward to today, there are several versions of hybrid pitches on the market, and the latest one was installed at Dharamsala on Monday. This version, advocated by UK-based SISGrass, inserts synthetic fibres at regular intervals along the length and breadth of the pitch. 

“The idea is to be able to control some elements and also enhance durability,” Paul Taylor, a former England cricketer and the current international sales director at SISGrass, tells DH. 

“We realised these were problem points in cricket because of the frequency of games these days. We had to find a way around that problem, and also the issue of weather discrepancies. With this system, we can control the amount of moisture which goes into the pitch, and that in turn, decides how the pitch behaves. 

“Typically, we have noticed that these hybrid pitches have more bounce,” he adds.

The installation process involves something called a Universal Machine. It’s about as big as a pitch roller but it’s more vertical, and the insides look like a yarn-making machine. The spindles are fed with synthetic yarn, and they are inserted into the pitch via minute punctures at 20 mm by 20 mm spacing. 

The synthetic fibre goes into the pitch at 90 mm depth and it loops around. Only around two mm of the synthetic fibre is exposed at the surface, and the yarn is the shade of dry grass so as to blend into the remainder of the pitch. 

In all, only about five per cent of the pitch is synthetic, and the remaining 95 per cent is natural turf. 

"What you'll find, though, is when you finish the game on them, the amount of renovation work you need to do before the next game is massively reduced. So that's where less pressure is put on the ground staff," says Taylor. "You can play on it up to three times longer than what you ordinarily would on a natural turf pitch.”

While these are valid concerns and the company attempts to mitigate some of them, dyed-in-the-wool curators aren’t buying it, one went so far as calling this procedure foolish. 

“I don’t think many people understand how the clay works,” says a renowned curator, who wished to remain anonymous. “There are structures and elements in clay which operate at a sub-atomic level, we cannot dictate how those elements behave. It will be a decade or more before we decode its secrets and learn to forecast how it will behave, let alone alter it. 

"Introducing synthetic materials to the clay to increase moisture content will not assist in anything. It might help with sports like football or hockey, but when it comes to cricket, the sport is inherently dependent on the variables which pitches provide," he elaborates.

Taylor answers these apprehensions by saying that they have successfully installed pitches across UK for close to two years and they have continued to behave well. 

Another curator chimes in: “Clay swells and shrinks based on moisture, true, but that’s not because of forcefully inserted water. Pouring water onto the pitch, in essence, that’s what they’re (SISGrass) speaking about, will change certain properties and they won’t be for the better in the long term.”