Science behind Headingley's ‘perfectly prepared' pitch: How wetting agent and plastic sheets helped retain moisture through five days

Indian Express

a day ago

The pitch for the first India-England Test at Headingley is being praised to the skies. The Yorkshire and England great Geoff Boycott, in Telegraph column, called it a dream wicket for batsmen where 'good bowlers who bent their back with pace and aggression took wickets … and ordinary straight-up-and-down bowlers were severely punished.'
Richard Robinson, the man responsible for keeping both bowlers and batsman in the game till the final session of the 5th day, has a good old trusted sauce and a delicate recipe that keeps the pitch mildly spiced but not boringly bland all through the course of the match. It is a combination of science and art in how Robinson first stores water in the pitch and through the Test pulls it out each day. 'It is a fine balance. It can easily go wrong and there could have been 70 all out on the first day You never know you could get it wrong. If there was more moisture, it would have seamed around more on the first day,' says Robinson, a couple of days after the Test that went to the wire with England winning.
First the sauce that is actually easily available at any gardening shop. It is called 'wetting agent', scientific name 'surfactant'. The primary function of this solution – it can also be in granular form – is to decrease the surface tension of the liquid it is added to. It is commonly used in paints so that it spreads evenly on the wall, in pesticides helping it to cover the plant, in detergents to get to each thread of the fabric. So when a 'wetting agent' is added to the water that showers the pitch, it penetrates the soil deeper and stays there.
Dealing with a long dry summer and unusually sweltering sun, curator Robinson stepped up the watering and got 'wetting agent' in the mix. 'I put a lot of moisture into the surface about two weeks before the game. I probably flooded the pitch about six times. So it was quite a green pitch a couple of days before the game,' he says. 'I also used a little bit of 'wetting agent' which helps the moisture go into the soil. Water seeps in deeper as the wetting agent breaks the surface tension. Rather than just rolling it off and making it disappear this helps the water to seep in.' The watering agent triggers a chemical reaction by which the water molecules that are close to each other spread.
Once the water gets retained in the pitch, comes the difficult task of bringing the water droplets, rather moisture, to the top surface of the pitch on all days of the Test. This process isn't done in one go but through the five days of the Test. There are two ways in which this can be achieved.
'I gradually started bringing the moisture out but because it was quite a hot forecast I had to leave quite a lot of moisture inside so that the pitch remains green for the last couple of days of the game,' he says. 'Like it is done at other places as well we use plastic sheets or big rollers to get the moisture out, depending on how you want to do it. Plastic sheets make the pitch sweat.' Meanwhile, the heavy roller uses its weight to squeeze the moisture out and settle on the top of the soil surface.
Boycott had the attention to detail as he appreciated the efforts of the Headingley curator. 'Too many groundsmen leave some moisture or a bit of grass on the surface to make sure the pitch lasts four or five days. They are frightened that if the pitch gets too dry, it may break up with too much spin and too much uneven bounce. Headingley did not break up because it was perfectly prepared,' he wrote.
Robinson says that pitches in Headingley don't crumble but it was heartening to see the catches carry to the slips and ball turning from the rough even on the final day of Test. But what surprised him was the lack of swing when there was heavy cover of dark clouds over Headingley. 'It was surprising but this has been a dry summer and it has been dry since March so there isn't much humidity. I thought it will swing but there was a bit of wind to that some doest allow the ball to swing,' he says.
The curator says the Headingley pitch was fair even though batsmen scored heavily. 'England didn't bowl very well on the first day of the Test, if they had they would have got a few more wickets,' he said. As for the Indians, they too could have bowled well and held their catches too. Pitches can help bowlers but only if the fielders hold on to the catches that come their way.