‘Never seen before’ – Adelaide Oval’s key role on New York’s T20 World Cup pitch

Adelaide Oval groundsman Damian Hough said the drop-in pitch used at New York’s Eisenhower Park for the Men’s T20 World Cup will be prepared using several trays before being built in Adelaide. He said it was a world first in that respect. It was shipped to Florida and transported to the new venue ahead of the tournament.

Given their past expertise in growing and preparing drop-in pitches, Mr Huff and his team at Adelaide Oval Turf Solutions will provide and prepare drop-in pitches at New York’s pop-up stadium. He was hired by the ICC to oversee it. Ten years.

Huff explained that preparing pitches for the World Cup is a complex process that comes with many logistical challenges.

“It’s a little difficult, but basically we made six of the 10 trays here in Adelaide,” Mr Hough said. channel 7. “We made them modular. We’re really proud of them. We have some from the back, but they’ll probably make an appearance here.” [on Adelaide Oval] next year.

“We put them in shipping containers and actually send them to wherever we want them around the world. But they ended up in Florida, and I’m there putting together trays and stuffing the soil. I just got back from a month’s work putting in, compacting and planting grass. In other words, it enters the growth stage.

“We have a company over there called LandTek that is helping us through the growth phase. Then we have two more trips over the next six months to do some work and transport everything from Florida. There’s a strategic trip.” On the way to New York, we put them in and prepare.

“A lot of work has been done so far. But the real work will start around the beginning of May. It will take two days to transport them, which is quite incredible. . We’ve never done anything like that before. So there’s a lot of firsts.” And we bury them in the ground.

“Four people will go into that venue, that pop-up stadium, a 34,000-seater stadium. Eight games in 10 days. One of them will be Pakistan and India, so it’s going to be great. And six people will go into the warm-up venue. Going in. A lot of teams are rotating and training so much.”

Huff, who also splits his time between working on the Adelaide Oval pitch for the Test match between Australia and the West Indies and on Adelaide’s BBL pitch, will play one warm-up game at Eisenhower Park before the World Cup. He said it was likely that there would be only one. begins.

“The first game is in early June,” Huff said. “There will probably be a warm-up match in late May to test the venue. But yeah, I pinch myself sometimes. It’s about getting involved and collaborating on something.”It’s very historic for the first World Cup to be held in America.”