Plenty of life in Christchurch Test pitch (7 March 1999)

7 March 1999

Plenty of life in Christchurch Test pitch

The Christchurch Press

Jade Stadium groundsman Chris Lewis is confident that his pitch will produce a result for the New Zealand-South Africa cricket test, starting next week.

Lewis said he felt "fairly confident" that the pitch would not degenerate into a dull, lifeless pitch, like the one that ruined the first test at Eden Park earlier this week.

"If it is no good, it won't be through lack of trying," he said. "It will be a good enough pitch for a result. The rest is not up to us."

New Zealand captain Dion Nash has requested ground staff to give the pitches a decent "haircut" before the final two tests.

Nash certainly does not want a repeat of the Eden Park fiasco, but he sees little sense in over-compensating with heavy grass cover for the final two tests, which would play into the South African fast bowlers' hands.

He said he did not expect to have much input into the preparation of the pitches at Christchurch, for the second test starting on Thursday, or Wellington a week later.

But he had his views on what would suit the New Zealanders, and make life harder for South Africa's aggressive and high-quality seam attack, spearheaded by the world's best speedster, Allan Donald.

"I don't think we'll be looking for too much grass to be honest," Nash said.

"If you were facing Allan Donald, you wouldn't want too much grass would you?

"I think we'll be looking for fair, good cricket wickets, that's all you can ask for."

Lewis said the pitch had a good grass cover at the moment.

"We will be removing some grass cover but keeping some. If you don't have grass cover, the sun bakes the bare areas and after five days it will break up and fall apart," he said.

Ground staff have been busy preparing following the Crusaders-Chiefs Super 12 rugby match last Friday. The wicket area had been covered by astro-turf during the match to prevent damage by boot sprigs.

"It has come up really well. You can't even tell there was a rugby match there," Lewis said.

Source :: The Christchurch Press (https://www.press.co.nz/)