Cricket Pitches: The Science Behind the Art of Pitch-Making

The book develops a practical understanding of the fundamental scientific principles and logic underlying the art of turf pitch preparation, measuring, analysing, and interpreting pitch surface behaviour. It’s an attempt to understand how the captains, players, coaches, curators, and groundsmen comprehend and analyse the cricket pitch behaviour (days before and during the matches) and whether the pitch behaviour can be standardised and quantified (through bench marking or forming a data-based management system (DBMS) of a pitch profile, pitch quality standards, a pitch behaviour analysis index (PBAI), or pitch behaviour forecasting (PBF) by examining or analysing its mineralogical, chemical, physical, or morphological compositions, weather variables, and different pitch preparation methods and techniques. Individual chapters in this book deal with clay mineralogy, the bench-marking of cricket pitch soils, pitch soil chemical properties, pitch soil water, pitch turf grass, pitch soilorganic matter, integrated rolling management, soil structure, and compressibility. This is an effort to decipher the impact of each and every major and minor component of pitch soil, which controls the pitch behaviour either in large or small magnitudes but acts as a critical factor in defining and shaping the pitch behaviour as a whole. Several real-life examples, pitch interviews, scenarios, and case studies as felt and observed by the curator( first author) during the preparation of various international, national, and board matches or during the construction and renovation of new wickets have been included in each and every relevant chapter so as to analyse, interpret, comprehend, and justify the theoretical science with the existing practises involved in pitch construction, preparation, or judging the complex nature of pitch behaviour. Based on findings through the DBMS, PBAI, and PQS of cricket pitch profiles, various innovative and simple methods of analysing, comprehending, and forecasting pitch behaviour have been devised that will enable one to judge and comprehend the complex pitch behaviour in simple ways.

Dr. S.B. Singh is working as a faculty member and curator at Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI)/ Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA). After graduating from Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa, Samastipur, Bihar (1989-1993), he completed his master’s degree in M.B.A. Marketing from S.N.S.I.B.M., Ranchi (2007-2010), and his PhD from Jharkhand Rai University (2014-2017). The title of this PhD was ＂Critical evaluation of economic and behavioural analysis of some important pitches laid on conventional or traditional methods vs. scientific methods based on recent research and developments: a case study of the JSCA International Cricket Stadium vs. the Keenan Stadium＂. This dissertation gave him a strong reason and objective to write a book and unravel the science behind the art of pitch making among cricket enthusiasts.

As a curator, Dr. Singh has conducted several Test matches, One Day Internationals, T-20s, and many BCCI board matches since 2010. He has also cleared the curators basic certification course in 2013 and the Level 1 (2019) course conducted by the BCCI at the National Cricket Academy, Bangalore.

Dr. Singh has published several papers related to cricket pitches in major national journals. His research papers have been presented at several national conferences and at BCCI seminars.

Dr. Singh has been actively involved in teaching, training, and active research on cricket pitch construction, preparation, and behavioural analysis while curating several international, national, and domestic cricket matches conducted by the BCCI and JSCA.

Dr. D. N. Singh has been a faculty member of Civil Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, since 1994. Before joining IIT Bombay, he served for short periods at the Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. His early education was completed in Lucknow, UP, India. He obtained his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from IIT Kanpur in 1986, 1989, and 1993, respectively.

His teaching, research, and development activities are in quite diversified areas of geotechnical engineering (viz., soil mechanics, foundation engineering, environmental geotechnology, mechanics of unsaturated soils, soil characterization based on thermal and electrical properties, contaminant transport in porous media, mineralogical characterization, utilisation and recycling of industrial waste, geotechnical centrifuge modeling, etc.). He has published more than 300 technical articles. He has supervised several Doctoral dissertations and master’s theses. He has been successful in filing several patents, of which many have been granted.

Apart from teaching and research, Dr. Singh had been very actively associated with some of the most prestigious business houses, as an in-house instructor and retainer consultant. He has worked on projects funded by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the Department of Science and Technology (DST-TIFAC), the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB). With financial aid received from these and several other organizations, he has established a state-of-the-art Environmental Geotechnology laboratory in the department.

Dr. Singh founded Environmental Geotechnics and has been its Editor-in-chief. He has been ’Editorial Board Member’ of several journals of repute. He is the recipient of several awards and is a Fellow the Indian National Academy of Engineering, American Society of Civil Engineers(ASCE) and Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE).

Dr. H. B. Nagaraj graduated in Civil Engineering from S.J.C.E., Mysore, in 1986 and obtained his post-graduation in geotechnical engineering in 1991 from Karnataka Regional Engineering College, Surathkal (presently NITK, Surathkal). He completed his doctoral degree in Soil Mechanics from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 2000. Since 1997, he has been serving as faculty in Civil Engineering at the BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore, India. He has keen research interests in ＂Engineering Behavior of Fine-Grained Soils＂ and ＂Alternate Building Materials＂.

Dr. H. B. Nagaraj has been active in research and has published more than 40 well-cited technical papers in international journals of repute and in a few important international conferences. He is an active reviewer for most of the leading international journals in the field of geotechnical engineering. He has been a recipient of many international awards for reviewing technical papers from PUBLONS in 2027, 2018, and 2019. He has also received the Outstanding Reviewer Award from two international journals of repute, published by Elsevier, namely the Journal of Cleaner Production (in 2016) and Applied Clay Science (in 2017). Very recently, he has been successful in implementing his laboratory-scale research findings in the construction of a rammed earth structure in one of a residential building project in Bangalore, a work that was taken up in collaboration with ’Made in Earth-Sustainable Architecture and Building Practices, Bangalore, India.In 2016, he was invited to review an international project proposal (seeking funding) submitted by a leading materials manufacturing and research organisation to the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the grant programme Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), United States of America.

Dr. H. B. Nagaraj has successively supervised two Doctoral dissertations and forty master’s theses. He has filed several patents, of which a few have been published. He has handled various externally funded projects, including those from DST and AICTE. He has also reviewed the BIS Code: Review of Geotechnical Provisions in Indian Seismic Code IS 1893 (Part 1): 2002 as a part of the GSDMA-IIT Kanpur project. He has delivered 20 lectures for VTU Edusat e-learning programmes on geotechnical Engineering in 2009 (Program Nos. 10 and 11) and 5 lectures in 2018 (Program no. 24).

He has handled more than 50 major consultancy projects in the fields of Geotechnical Investigation and Forensic Geotechnics for Major Clients including STUP consultants, NCCCL, the Airport Authority of India, SEW Infrastructures Ltd., Reliance InfraTel Ltd., KRDCL, Bangalore Development Authority, Land Army Corporation, Southern Railways, and others. He recently managed TWO major industry-based consulting projects to use iron ore tailings at Rai Bahadur Seth Shreeram Narasingdas (RBSSN) Pvt. Ltd., Kariganur, Hospet, Karnataka, to produce building blocks for construction applications. He is presently supervising the practical implementation of the production units, which is in progress. This will promote sustainability and the sustenance of the construction industry in the area of implementation.

Dr. S. K. Ray joined the ICAR-National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning (NBSS&LUP) as a scientist in 1991 and as a principal scientist in 2007. In 2015, he was appointed Head, ICAR-NBSS&LUP, Regional Centre, Jorhat.He obtained his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the University of Calcutta.

He has about 29 years of professional experience working in various parts of India and abroad in Natural Resource Management, Soil Genesis and Mapping, Soil Classification, Application of Remote Sensing and Geographical Information Systems, Soil Chemistry and Clay Mineralogy, Soil Carbon Sequestration, Carbon Modeling and Climate Change, Soil and Land Quality, Land Evaluation, and Land Use Planning.

He has published about 116 peer-reviewed research papers in national and international journals and several other types of technical publications during his career. He has also developed patents and copyrights from his work.

Dr. Ray has received about 14 awards, among which are the ICAR Team Award for Interdisciplinary Research, the Usha Zende Award for the best paper published in micro-nutrient research, the Fellow of the Maharashtra Academy of Sciences, the Fellow of the Clay Minerals Society of India, and the Fellow of the Indian Society of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning. He is a visiting scientist at the Soil and Water Science Department, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.

He is also a member of various committees of the Government of India’s Department of Science and Technology, as well as the Boards of Management and Academic Councils of several universities, as well as Research Advisory Committees and Institute Management Committees of several institutes and organisations in India.