As New Zealand gears up for the festive season, cricket enthusiasts are dusting off their bats and revving up for the ultimate summer showdown: backyard cricket. To help elevate your cricketing game from casual to pro, the Herald caught up with the turf management maestros at Auckland’s Eden Park to uncover the secrets behind a perfect pitch.

The key to a great backyard cricket match lies in the preparation of your pitch. Eden Park’s turf management team humorously liken it to preparing Christmas ham – the longer and more thoughtful the preparation, the better the taste – or in this case, the better the pitch.

Turf assistant Niko Weerakoon explains: “I think one of the things where people go wrong is probably just with moisture management and the moisture content of their wickets. You’ve got to get a lot of water into your wicket early in the prep. Give it a lot of water early and let it dry out right for your game. That’s when you’re going get a great outcome with your backyard wickets.”

Before watering, the first important step is to lay down a string line marking the length and position of your pitch, then mow three mower widths on either side of it of the string.

Weerakoon advises: “Once you mow, scalp it right off and get a lot of water into it. Let the grass come back nice and thin, especially if you’ve got Kikuyu lawn. The grass comes back beautifully. Don’t worry if it’s all scalped; it’ll come back.”

Another turf assistant, Dion Buckingham, suggests that the format you want to play will dictate how you prepare your pitch. “The amount of grass that you get on your wicket is a big factor. If you’re going for a longer format, leave a little bit more grass on it, let it play, and have a bit of variability in the game. Short format, take a bit of grass off, scalp it right back, and then get your mates out in the backyard – it would be good fun.”

Weerakoon and Buckingham say if you are a budding Richard Hadlee or Tim Southee, leave a bit more grass on the wicket, especially if you’re preparing your home track. But if you’re more of a Martin Crowe or Kane Williamson, take the length right down.

Eden Park, most famously known as the home of rugby in New Zealand, has hosted epic cricket battles over the years. Assistant turf manager Adam Hansen emphasises the meticulous approach to pitch perfection: “There is that science element to preparing cricket wickets; we do analyse what’s happening under the ground. On game day, when it’s a nice fine day, we’re always checking the radar and the weather forecast a lot of times every day, basically because the weather changes so much in Auckland, and that does dictate how we prepare wickets and how early we need to start preparing wickets and because it’s all dictated by what’s in the sky.

“We just try and produce as good a surface as we can and let the players do what they do.”

The wisdom from Eden Park echoes loud and clear – a well-prepared pitch is the secret sauce for a victorious backyard cricket season. Once the food coma from Christmas lunch kicks in, don’t forget about your backyard haven. Check the forecast, mow the pitch, pump it full of moisture, and let it shine like a Christmas bauble under the summer sun.

Luke Kirkness is an Online Sports Editor for the NZ Herald. He previously covered consumer affairs for the Herald and was an assistant news director in the Bay of Plenty. He won Student Journalist of the Year in 2019.