So we use the Regal 36's (two of those) to cut the outfield two or three main reasons for that
firstly is presentation; when you've got the rollers and the weight of the rollers on them
it means that all the stripes look very consistent there's no wheel marks from like a triple when you
sit up high the tv cameras are in secondly which is also as important really is the ball roll
when you've had the Regal's on it the ball rolls really consistent
it firms it up nicely it goes quicker we use a trailing seat on there just purely for time
it's a hectare and a half it's a big space it's a big area so putting the trailing seat
on really helps you get it done probably to do one way it normally takes two people two hours
on an average cut and we pretty much do this six times six times a week so it's cut twice a
day six times a week only time we don't do it is if it's obviously raining or we want to give the
field a little bit of a rest to try and recover but no we use the regals they do a fantastic job
you know really always really impressed with it and the one of the key reasons as well
is the definition of the stripe the edge from stripe to stripe really stands out
which we we really like here at Edgbaston. So the reason we collect the grass in the box pure
and simply is to reduce the thatch debris build up well other than the presentation basically we want
to drain the water to drain through the profile as quick as it can and if there's grass lying on
the top it will create that you just slow that down and slow the ball down the run of the ball
all the things like that so that's why we collect the clippings. We will go into 12 mil soon that's
probably our height to cut mostly for the most of the season like I say we sometimes do go to 11.
It then just starts to take a little too much and it's a bit more punishing on the plan for
a four day game five day test match again like I said before you'll see the stripes are all in line
with the square it's all striped up with a square so they're in line that's basically for the tv
cameras so it looks exactly the same when tv and sky are here it looks really in line with that but
if you look the other way although it's in line and it's 20 foot strips one way with the square
the other way is slightly thinner and the reason for that is is we've got a verti-drainer for the
back of the tractor that's there to if we have heavy rain we converted drain the field and help
drainage quicker and basically each stripe with lengthways is for the verti-drainer to do three
times so it doesn't ruin the bay if you do it 20 foot it overlaps and it ruins the bay a little
bit so we sort of go with the machinery we've got so that's why it's slightly different but to the
naked eye it's only two or three feet so you'd never see it but everyone's exactly the same.
So the outfield here is cut at 12 mil again it can go to 11. We have gone to 10 before but for
me the perfect outfield presentation wise to play in public looks amazing and the players
no injuries caused on it so there's enough give for the players to dive around but also there's
enough pace in it for the ball to carry really quickly and travel really quickly to the boundary
so it's fine in that balance it's quite tricky one of the other key factors of the outfield
in England as well as other countries but in England is that they can percolate the water
through them very quickly so on a test match you can be out here very quickly
so one of the one of the key issues we have at the ground like with a lot of other people that
work in the professional sport is we have a giant stone if you're an amateur you've got trees but
we've got a new stand built in 2009 and 10. it's straight up so from sort of October the 1st
to February the 15th the whole of the squares and the shade for all of the winter so we lose
half the field to shade we have started to get lighting rigs in to try and combat that
but even on a day like today there's beautiful sunshine in the middle of april late april
half the outfield at that top end where the stand is has got shade on it or percentage so we do
fight that and work with that we've got the lighting rigs like i say we work a lot of things
we've tried different grass seeds but actually we've found that the perennial rye grass is quite
strong and sort of tackles it quite well. So when I started at Leicester in 1993 one of the machines
that they had was a Regal for the outfield it's a lovely piece of machinery worked really well we'd
been there a long time when i got there we then bought an updated version and every ground I've
been to whether that Trent bridge or here and at Leicestershire we always have regals to cut
the outfield. The reason was a very good cut good pace to cut the outfield very strong very robust
and actually in a lot of conditions sometimes it's a little bit damp and still cut well
on all of them though the one thing that was a denominator and everyone we always had a trailing
seat purely because of the size of the outfield and the time you scale you've got to do it with.
So the outfield at Edgbaston has a number of tasks done to over a year and each month is planned
but we basically have a month on month that starts from verti-draining in January to hollow-coring
in march verti-cutting out in march , seeding in march and top dressing with sand in march, We then
verti-drain again sometimes in April and pro-core once a month dependent on weather conditions
we then maybe once every three weeks we go over it with the uni-rake and core collector
collecting debris then maybe in the middle of the season again we may be pro-core around at a proper
time when we've got no cricket on it's obviously weed we feed it fertilizers programs with which
we've got per month and seaweed but then we get to the back end of the season when the fields
when we're finishing cricket and we get the we we sort of plan together and that will consist
of verti-cutting probably four or five ways to a depth of about 15 mil minus 15 mil we collect that
debris that's all taken off site we then seed up we then sorry we then hollow-core then we seed up
again then the hollow-core will go down to about six inches and they're 12 mil tines so that'll
take that debris out again that's to get rid of organic matter to keep the percolation rates up.
It will be then seeded with about 30 bags of grass seed in about four different directions
again then we'll sand it with 30 tons of sand spread on with it with a dakota sand spreader
that'll be brushed in and then the winter program will start where we verti-drain to depth of about
nine inches at about 19 mil tines probably once a month to sort of get the air movement
circulating in the profile. So generally we've got sensors put in the outfield from soil scout
that are really good and tell us how the moisture is moving in the profile
but generally you know with experience you start to know so when the weather starts to get firm
and you're looking at it and you think yeah it's ready so we've got 19 pop-up sprinklers around the
edge of the field and then we've got another 11 station pop-ups that can range from two to
four in in rows and if you put a two millimetre cycle of rain for once of water on the outfield
from the sprinklers we generally put on around 47 000 litres of water on this outfield
you can do that three times in a night in the middle of summer and the following day
it will be dry in the morning so it's it does take it it's very needy of water but yeah leading on
hot days you can potentially put you know 150 000 leads of water on and you won't see a difference
we generally do that at night for two or three reasons one we're working on the field in the day
two is evaporation rates the sun will evaporate it and the other reason is
we want it to go into the profile and get to where the plant needs it the most