Backyard Cricket Pitch

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Wilbix

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Backyard Cricket Pitch

My cousins and I have been playing cricket at my cottage for the last 4-5 years. I crafted my own set of stumps out of wood bought from The Home Depot and we started one summer weekend and everyone loved it. Since then, we've drafted rules for all manner of events and we play any time we are there.

After a heavy summer of use (and a lot of rain) the pitch is in bad shape. Previously, it has just consisted of mowing out a strip short before we play, so it has been a very soft green wicket. After our Labour Day Twenty20 tournament (which I won, scoring just 5 runs (for 2 wickets) first up in the final, then c & b the opponent for 4) there are very muddy patches, and the grass is generally in bad shape.

As I am the guy who takes everything too far, I've decided this is the perfect opportunity to put in a proper pitch. We agreed to cancel the annual Thanksgiving Weekend Test in favour of having a beauty of a strip in place by next summer. So this past weekend I began the work on it. I have pictures, and will post them soon, but I forgot my digital so I have to fill up the film and get it processed. I mowed the strip, scarified it, raked out all the loose bits, and then seeded it with a 50/50 Rye/Bluegrass mix. Now I will just keep watering it and hope it makes a good start before the winter.

Anyone have any suggestions as to what I could do better? As I say, I will post the pictures and a more detailed step-by-step when I get a chance. Hopefully this will start a revolution of professional backyard pitches.
 
Backyard Cricket Pitch (x-post)

I'm cross-posting this from Backyard Cricket, because I'm not sure if anyone reads that anymore. I'd like to get some feedback on this.

My cousins and I have been playing cricket at my cottage for the last 4-5 years. I crafted my own set of stumps out of wood bought from The Home Depot and we started one summer weekend and everyone loved it. Since then, we've drafted rules for all manner of events and we play any time we are there.

After a heavy summer of use (and a lot of rain) the pitch is in bad shape. Previously, it has just consisted of mowing out a strip short before we play, so it has been a very soft green wicket. After our Labour Day Twenty20 tournament (which I won, scoring just 5 runs (for 2 wickets) first up in the final, then c & b the opponent for 4) there are very muddy patches, and the grass is generally in bad shape.

As I am the guy who takes everything too far, I've decided this is the perfect opportunity to put in a proper pitch. We agreed to cancel the annual Thanksgiving Weekend Test in favour of having a beauty of a strip in place by next summer. So this past weekend I began the work on it. I have pictures, and will post them soon, but I forgot my digital so I have to fill up the film and get it processed. I mowed the strip, scarified it, raked out all the loose bits, and then seeded it with a 50/50 Rye/Bluegrass mix. Now I will just keep watering it and hope it makes a good start before the winter.

Anyone have any suggestions as to what I could do better? As I say, I will post the pictures and a more detailed step-by-step when I get a chance. Hopefully this will start a revolution of professional backyard pitches.
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch (x-post)

i am very against you canceling the thanksgiving match!

you have months of pitch maintainance after the holiday, no reason to cancel it. i wish i had a backyard match to play on t'giving!
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch (x-post)

threads merged, i left a redirect in the general forum to this one incase people 'forget' about the backyard forum like you think ;)
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch

It was a tough choice to cancel it, but the pitch was in baaad shape, you'll see when I post the pictures. As for having months of maintenance - by early December there will be snow on the ground, I need to get some decent roots down before then. We may go down the street to a park to play: I wonder what the neighbours will think of a bunch of kids walking down the street to the park with a lawnmower and a cricket bat.....:D
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch

One week later, made the trek back up the cottage to check on the progress. Things are generally looking good, probably a third of the seed has sprouted and the rest is looking plump and ready to follow. The only issue is a large puddle that has formed at the bowlers run-up with heavy rainfall in the last few days. Hopefully the weather stays warm for another week or so, so all the grass can put roots down. Pictures and a big step-by-step report to come tomorrow.
 
Detailed Progress Report w/ Pics

So, as promised, here is the full report of my work on preparing and seeding the pitch at my cottage. I arrived last Thursday morning to a beautiful, warm, sunny day and got right to work. The first job was raking the leaves off the pitch area, and after I had done that it looked like this (from the bowler's end):

firstbowlers.jpg


I then proceeded to mow the lawn to a length of approximately one quarter inch - the lowest setting the mower provides. For next year, I will likely have to take the back wheels off entirely in order to prepare the pitch for play. This was the view from the batsman's end.

mowedbatsman.jpg


The next step was to scarify the area, to pull out dead matter and to allow seeds to germinate in the ground. To contrast the scarification process, here is how it looked with half the wicket done.

halfscarred.jpg


This was definitely the hardest part, as I had to run over each area 3 times to get it properly done. After a break for an ice cold Coke, I raked the area very carefully to get all leaves, dead grass, and weeds out. We are now ready for seeding, and it looks like this.

scarredraked.jpg


The rest of the process will follow shortly...
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch

One final task before seeding was the filling of the rather large foothole at the batsman's end. It was exceedingly difficult to steady my hand with the shovel in one hand and the camera in the other.

foothole.jpg


My last job on day one was to lay the seed. I used Scott's Pure Premium grass seed plus fertilizer, and spread it at a rate twice that recommended for overseeding. I seeded even more densely at the batsman's end foothole, and the bare patch at the bowler's runup (look at the first picture to see this). After watering, napping, and watering again, the pitch looked like this, with the members club in the background.

enddayonebowlers.jpg


Finally here is a shot of the Pavilion at the end of day one of work.

enddayone.jpg


Unfortunately I was unable to go the ground to water it daily since I do not live very near the cottage during the school year. However, God smiled on the pitch by providing alternating rain and sun throughout the week, and ideal temperatures in the low to mid-teens (Celsius). One week later, I returned, and I will post what I found in a day or two. Anybody who can tell me what I did right and what I did wrong, please do!
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch

that glass door to the pavillion looks ripe for a drive shot!

how many people do you usually get to play? some of those trees are huge- do you play hitting them on the fly an out?
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch

The glass door is on the leg side, and does get hit sometimes, but the biggest opening in the yard is through the off-side, where I stood to take that picture. We play with a dedicated bowler's and batsman's end to avoid playing too many hard shots into the member's club, which is where the grandparents sip their coffee. A leg glance usually still goes in there though...:D

The ground rule pertaining to trees is that the ball is live in or on them. So if it slowly trickles down the branches and is caught, it is out. Also if it hangs up in a tree, if a fielder can get to it before the batsman can knock it down - out. Makes for some nice fun times. We usually play with between 5-8 people, depending on who's up and who's willing to play.

If we have fewer people, everyone bats alone, but if there are 6 or 8, we play in partnerships with two wickets to the pair.
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch

Glad you like it! I'll probably post the one-week update sometime tonight. (Toronto time)
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch

One week later, there was good news and bad news in my cricket pitch at the cottage. The good news was that some of the seed had germinated and put up sprouts, and the pitch looked generally healthy. Tha bad news - the night before I went up there was a heavy rainstorm, and as such there was some ponding at the bowler's end of the pitch.

When I arrived in the morning, as expected, falling leaves had covered the ground again which would not allow the seeds to get the sunlight they need. The wind had been blowing well, so you can't even discern where the pitch is.

dayseven.jpg


I had to rake it carefully, making sure to get all the leaves off without disturbing the young blades of grass. It took some time, but I got the majority of the leaves off and left the majority of the grass in. Another problem was the fact that the wind was still blowing, and so the leaves wanted to keep going back on the pitch, so I had to rake them a little further away from the pitch than I had been. After raking was completed, the view from the bowler's end was such:

bowlersflood.jpg


You'll notice in that picture that there was flooding in the low area at the bowler's end because of depressions caused by running up to the wicket. I tried to alleviate it the most I could by spreading it around, but had only limited success with that. In any case, I'm not too worried because since then there has been nothing but sunny, warmer days which I'm sure has dried up any puddles. I may have to reseed the area next week if the seed had been swept away. Here's a closer look at the puddle.

flooding.jpg


Now to the good news! New grass! I found new grass from seed that I had sown scattered about the pitch, and also a large amount of old grass growing up through the dirt from the scarification. Another fun occurence of the day - snow! You can't see it in the pictures, but for about 5 minutes there was some little flakes falling. This is not normal for this time of year, and it has since warmed up and become more reasonable temperatures at 10C and a little higher. Here's a close up of new grass! (sorry about the resolution, it was a one-use camera)

newgrass.jpg


More to come in a moment in a separate post.
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch

I didn't do much else on this day, partially due to cold and partially because my tee time was coming up quickly. The next step (this Thursday) will be to put down some winter fertilizer and of course, rake off all the leaves that will have fallen. Looking forward, I would ideally like to get it mowed once before the winter comes, but I can't do that until it grows in a little better and gets a little longer. Again if anyone has any groundskeeping experience and can give me some advice, do let me know as I would like this to be a very good pitch for next year's cricket season.

To finish up, here is a comparison from last week to this week. The picture on the left is essentially the end of day one, from the batsman's end. On the right is a picture taken from the batsman's end at the end of day eight, one week later. Notice the greater amount of green on the after picture (though it is less brilliant due to flatter light conditions).

scarredraked.jpg
batsmandayseven.jpg
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch

I think it is about time people starting taking there BYC pitches far more seriously and im glad you are pioneering this venture. The wicket looks to be shaping nicely, is the soil firm underfoot? Will there be any left-handed bowlers in attendance? Looks asthough they will be around the wicket or off the short run. Its hard to tell exactly is the pitch full length? It looks asthough it is and if so I'm wondering what type of ball will you be playing with? Keep up the good work Wilbix
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch

The soil is firm enough. Not as firm as a real proper pitch, but I'm not quite crazy enough to start excavating and compacting and bringing in bulli and all that. Currently we have no left-handed bowlers that play, but there's always a chance some may show up. We'll have to deal with that when the time comes. The pitch is not full length, generally we have put the stumps 15 metres apart when we play, the area I am working on is 18 metres long.

In terms of ball, we have always used a tennis ball, and in the last year we discovered taping. I used some twine to put a "seam" around the ball, and then taped it half with hockey tape and half with electrical tape, so we can get some swing going. However, since building this pitch is making me very anxious for more cricket, I am going to spend the winter experimenting with combinations of elastic bands and tape, trying to make an ideal ball for our pitch. Tennis balls are good though, because on the off-chance one gets lost we can quite simply tape a new one in about 10 minutes.

Thanks for your support, and rest assured I will keep posting updates whenever I go check on my baby.
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch

So it has been another couple of weeks, and at this point I have done all I can do this fall. The growth continued, and the grass that is there is in very good shape. Unfortunately, the grass is a little less dense than I would have liked. I'm not too worried, though, as I will be overseeding again as soon as it gets warm enough in the spring. Overall I am pleased.

Last week I raked again and then mowed to a length of approximately 2 cm. I then applied Scott's Wintercare Fertilizer which will promote strong root growth over the winter and prevent weeds from infiltrating. It also says it will provide early "green-up" in the spring, which will obviously be necessary so I can get overseeding done as soon as possible. The earlier the better, because it will need at least two weeks to grow before it will be ready for play, and Victoria Day (May 24) is usually opening day.
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch

I'm getting very bored with this winter thing. Having put in all that work earlier in the fall has left me itching to get out there and have a knock. I'm already dreaming up fixture lists and points tables for my cousins and me to play with this summer. Hopefully the pitch turns out to be everything I wanted it to be. I was looking through some pictures, and found one from late this past summer, when I was playing. Here was the best one:

dsc00753qs3.jpg


Notice the ball in flight about halfway down the pitch. also notice the poor positioning and apathy of the mid-on and offs. The batter at the time has played baseball for a few years, and bats that way in cricket as well, that explains why he is standing so far away from his stump. About 3 balls after this picture was taken, I bowled him with a beauty of a legspinner - bounced on his toes and jagged across, nicked the bail on off-stump. ONLY 5 MONTHS UNTIL OPENING DAY!
 
Re: Backyard Cricket Pitch

Great work mate. I have recently applied to do a Groundskeeping course with Queensland Cricket. Hopefully I get accepted and then I'm sure I could give you some tips. Probally wouldn't hurt to buy a cheap tarp closer to match day. You would hate to have your big game ruined by a spot of rain...
 
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