The Hindu : Sport : Atkinson's diet for pitches

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 20, 2006

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Atkinson's diet for pitches

S. Ram Mahesh

Basseterre: The brouhaha surrounding pitches has led to the creation of a new job: the pitch doctor. Andy Atkinson is no quack.

The rotund gentleman — who oversaw wicket preparations in Pakistan when India toured in early 2004 — has the well-stamped passport of a rich tourist and the infectious enthusiasm of an eight-year-old.

Atkinson — a consultant with the ICC — has been here since last Monday, ensuring the track is no St. Lucia-repeat. His drafting, however, is not a knee-jerk reaction to Brian Lara's tirade after the second Test against the tracks he has been given. "Ricky (Skerritt) called me up after the one-day game (played on May 23) because they didn't have any experience with making five-day tracks," says Atkinson.

"I was to be here for the ICC anyway to assess the venues for Cricket World Cup, so I just came in a little early. I was here when they first laid the square, so I am attached to this ground. The last time with the one-day game, they rolled it too much, and that made it slow. It's big leap for Warner Park going from club cricket to international cricket."

Preparation is crucial

How much difference can he make in two weeks? "You can't change the basic character of a wicket, but preparation is crucial. You can over-water it, over-roll it and make it real slow. The soil content, for instance, with Indian wickets is no different from Australian, or South African. I took samples from Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mohali, and had it analysed and found the clay content was the same as in Australia or South Africa.

"Why you don't have similar wickets is because of the preparation. In India, they tend to mix the red soil, which dusts and powders, with black, which is what makes a wicket hard. John Wright told me in Pakistan how 85 per cent of captains in first class cricket are batsmen, and how they don't want good wickets."

What then is the Atkinson Diet for pitches? "What I like to do is really flood the square, let the water soak in nicely till the clay. Then you roll it so that it gets compacted really well. There's no point rolling a dry wicket. Every time you want to roll it, sprinkle it with a little moisture.

`Heavy roller kills pace'

"Using too much of the heavy roller just kills the pace in the wicket. Heavy rollers were initially

used in cricket to quieten lively wickets during the match. There was a time in England when we moved to do away with it, but Mike Gatting got caught on a sticky wicket and made a fuss, so we have the heavy roller in the game.

"Here at Warner Park we are going to leave a touch of grass, nothing drastic, to ensure the ball goes through, there is some carry. What I'm doing is sprinkling water and rolling it for about 45 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening. We keep it under covers in the afternoon, so the sun doesn't get to it."

Atkinson points to the spanking new mower and the motorised roller and nods appreciatively. "They have equipped the place well," he says, adding the "worst I've been to was South Africa". Mopping his sun-burnt face, he explains why the track at St. Lucia was slow. "They have just three wickets on that square — the World Cup requires four. So what they did was just remove all the gaps between wickets and convert it to four. Half of the wicket which India played on was a gap, which was not prepared enough".

What about Lara slamming the wickets? "Brian is just having a go at different people, now that he is coming to the end of his career," says Atkinson. "He'll probably finish after the World Cup so he's having some of his own back. After a practice game against England, he called the St. Lucia track the best in the Caribbean, the next against Bangladesh failed to produce a result weeks later, and he called it the worst."

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