Elvis, Flintoff & soil – life in England’s fast lane

Out-of-season training in a marquee is nothing unusual – plenty of counties do the same. The innovation at Loughborough is the surfaces, conceived to give England teams more exposure to conditions found in places like Australia and South Africa.

The senior men happen to be touring those two countries over the following two winters. The women, Lions and Young Lions are all in South Africa now, or heading there soon. There is a longer-term element, too, with the hope England players will benefit for many years to come.

Pace and bounce is as indigenous to the UK as a polar bear. Ben Stokes asked for such surfaces during last year’s Ashes, though Mitchell Starc was more on the money when he said: “I don’t think you get fast wickets in England”.

Even before Stokes’ request, there was a plan in place to make the net pitches in Loughborough a cricketing science experiment. Andy McKay, the ECB’s pitch and grounds advisor, had “12 months staring into the void” until surfaces were built more than two years ago.

McKay’s challenge was clay. Fast, bouncy pitches usually come from a soil with a high clay content, yet clay is no friend of the ryegrass that grows in this country.

Clay also cracks. The rapid Waca in Perth, Australia, has a high clay content, but produced cracks big enough for a small child to fall into. Not ideal for the safety of a practice pitch that will be used over and over. Just for good measure, there was also a desire for McKay’s pitches to take spin early.

“We examined different sand shapes, finding a sand that would give us hardness, combining elements of clay, silt and particle distribution to make sure that we had a high-binding strength soil,” says McKay.

The result, if we want to get really geeky, is a mix of clay, pure sand and sandy loam. “We’ve arrived at something a little bit funky,” he says. “For want of a better description, it is a designer cricket soil.”

Glen Chapple, with nearly 1,000 first-class wickets to his name and a fast-bowling consultant for the Lions, describes the pitches as “rapid”. McKay believes the process can be repeated at a major ground if a county is willing to go through the process.

“There is an opportunity for a venue if they wanted to do something a bit different,” he says.