The Powerplay Instant Cricket Surface – The World Is Your Wicket

When a chance discussion took place about the lack of natural turf cricket grounds in China, little did we know that the seeds of a revolutionary portable cricket pitch had been sown...

In 2007,?Notts Sport Ltd?Chairman and owner, Shaun Patrick, was invited to attend an ACC trip to Chengdu in China where he visited the University to watch a match being played.

Shaun was informed that most games took place on 3G football pitches because the government had installed one at each school and cricket squares and grounds, as we know them in the UK, simply didn’t exist in any great quantity. Ball bounce performance, reacting from rubber crumb infill used within 3G surfacing, was very loopy and erratic, the cricket therefore was unsatisfactory.

The brief was clear, a system which could be rolled out over the top of a 3G facility providing an even bounce and yet still be easy to handle and store, would be a remarkable step forward for developing cricket nations. Additionally, UK market research suggested the game needed an affordable way to be taken to urban areas.

The Research & Development team at Notts Sport was actioned!

The performance layer that sits beneath the traditional green surface was the key innovation and the most time consuming element to perfect but two years after that first discussion in China, the Powerplay Instant Cricket Surface (PICS) was fine-tuned and ready for market.

Further testing identified that the control part of the wicket worked well over sand filled multi use games areas, indoor sprung flooring and even, with the right location selected, the base application that historically had been a no go area for portable cricket mats; a natural turf sports field.

The system allowed the creation of instant facilities for coaching and recreational matches – it also meant floodlit cricket became accessible to all as most full size artificials the world over were built with this feature.

The pitch top surface itself was specially designed to reproduce spin and seam bowling reaction and, of course, for use in all weathers to be possible, the material needed to provide underfoot grip even in wet conditions, whilst being UV protected for?hotter climates.

The product has been utilised to enable some high profile events - such as the successful world record attempt for the longest ever cricket match and the Canada XI v Asia All Star game at the Rogers Centre in Toronto - as well as to start new clubs, add practice capacity and to give a welcome boost to cricket in schools.

The Powerplay story continues but those first 'green shoots' from our China trip flourished to help bring a new dimension to cricket development and participation strategies as instant cricket grounds and practice locations were created where previously it was deemed not possible to play.

Notts Sport is a specialist supplier of synthetic grass cricket pitch systems for indoor and outdoor solutions, to all levels of the game. If you have a new build or refurbishment project, please do not hesitate to contact us via email [email protected], call 01455 883730, or DM this article author directly.