St George’s Park prepares for drop-in pitch era

Work is continuing on Dafabet St George’s Park’s new drop-in pitch system, with head groundsman Adrian Carter hoping the surface will be ready for its competitive debut around February as the venue looks to increase its match-hosting capacity.

The innovation will allow pitches to be rotated, reducing recovery periods and increasing the number of matches the historic venue can stage.

“The theory is to play on a pitch, when you finish with it, you take it out and you bring in a fresh one,” Carter said on Thursday.

“The thing that actually stops us now is our amount of cricket pitches. A cricket pitch can’t be used for 30 days, so the more drop-ins you have, the more your capacity increases.”

Unlike traditional wickets, drop-in pitches are grown in specially constructed trays before being moved into position when required.

St George’s Park is joining a growing list of South African venues adopting drop-in pitches.

The Wanderers became the first to host top-level cricket on the new surface, while Gqeberha is among several other grounds introducing the technology.

The project, which will see Carter work alongside lead engineers Enduro Engineering and Harmony Green, includes two drop-in trays weighing more than 36 tonnes each, excavation of the central pit and the later installation of a pneumatic lifting system allowing the wickets to be raised, removed and replaced.

The trays were assembled about a year ago before Carter and his grounds staff filled them with the same soil profile as the existing square, added fertiliser and planted the grass in December.

The two trays are currently located in front of the Graeme Pollock Pavilion and between Castle Corner and the electronic scoreboard while the grass continues to mature.

“We will definitely be using one in the upcoming season,” Carter said.

“Obviously we’re not going to play a first-class game on it first up because, like any pitch, it has to settle first. I’m hoping maybe to play a game on it somewhere around February.”

While St George’s Park is among the venues selected to host matches during the 2027 World Cup, Carter said no decision had yet been made on when the drop-in pitch would be used during the tournament.

However, the added flexibility could prove valuable should Gqeberha host the five matches outlined in a Nelson Mandela Bay council report previously reported by The Herald.

“Depending on how many games we have, I would like to play one game on one pitch,” Carter said.

“So if we have five games, then I would like to use five different pitches. Once the fixtures are out, we’ll then have a look at it and see.”

Although the technology is new to St George’s Park, Carter expects the pitches to produce familiar playing conditions because they have been built using the same soil profile as the venue’s traditional wickets.

“It has been constructed using our same soil, so I’m not expecting it to play any differently than our existing cricket pitches,” he said.

“We’re very optimistic it will play similarly to our original pitches, but there are so many unknown variables. A lot of what we learn about this will come through trial and error.”