THE start of the Hawkesbury District Cricket Association season is just over a week away, and first grade players will be looking forward to playing on Richmond Oval which is in its best condition in a number of years.
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That’s the opinion of ground curator Fred Drexel.
Drexel, who plays first grade for Richmond, is starting his third season in charge of the wicket, and the past month’s wet weather has given all five pitches good grass coverage.
“It’s greened up and the grass is coming back,” Drexel said.
“Last year I had to do a fair bit of weeding and the grass was pretty sparse. At the same stage as last year, it’s better.
“We trained on one of the pitches last week and while it was a little bit up and down, I didn’t put too much preparation into it, but for matches it’s usually pretty hard.”
Drexel expects the Richmond Oval surface to be fair, giving bowlers and batsmen the chance to shine if they play well.
“There will be a bit in it for both batsmen and bowlers,” he said.
“There will be a bit of grass on it so the fast bowlers will get a bit out of it with the new ball, but if you’ve got good top order batsman that can see the new ball off then there’s plenty of runs on offer.”
Drexel said the recent wet weather had been a blessing.
“It [wet weather] didn’t effect it too much because I was just trying to get the grass growing and was just fertilising it so it worked out pretty well,” he said.
Drexel, who rolls the Richmond Oval wicket every Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning, said he was lucky to be in charge of a pitch that wasn’t wrecked by football.
“I feel sorry for the bloke at McQuade, trying to get it back off a rugby season, especially because we’re only part-time,” he said.
