Cricket Pitches - Science behind the Art of Pitch Making

It is said that making a cricket pitch is an art which has been transformed from one generation of Groundsman to another since the inception of the game of cricket in India by the British colonial rulers. All the steps and available conditions during the pitch making processes like pitch soil selection, laboratory testing, layering process and technique, acclimatized grass selection and planting, rolling techniques and schedules to attain the maximum compaction, effect of micro-climatic factors (such as temperature, relative humidity, available soil moisture within the pitch profile, wind speed, evapo-transpiration rate, dew factors and available soil moisture just above and below the pitch surface etc. ,) do have the proved scientific reasons and have the direct correlation with the desired outcome and performance of the pitch. Nearly a century old traditional and conventional style of selecting a pitch soil and its layering concepts were based only on the trial and error technique adopted by the groundsman who lacked the desired scientific know how which need to be improved. Now a days the Board of Cricket for Control in India (BCCI) along with the associated State Cricket Associations has initiated a special campaign to find out the gap between the traditional style of pitch making process and the different scientific methods based on research and developments. Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, through BCCI, has analyzed almost all the pitch soils used by the major cricket stadiums of India for physical and chemical parameters. Such physical and chemical analyses of pitch soils are of immense importance for understanding the wide variability existing in different pitch soils of India under different climatic zones. Synergetic efforts of the BCCI along with the associated State Cricket Associations and the Central and State Agricultural / Engineering colleges may produce magical results in understanding the nature and behavior of great Indian pitches and thereby improvising them. This review article is an effort to understand the various logical scientific reasons (based on research and developments) and methods of pitch making process, taking advantage of the skills and vast experiences of the curators and groundsman gathered over a long periods of their professional services.