A leading cricket consultant believes Bermuda's showpiece wicket is “more suitable for growing carrots on.”

And the International Cricket Council's Andy Atkinson revealed a top colleague had recommended foreign clay would have been better for the controversial cricket pitch at the National Sports Centre (NSC) nearly five years ago, The Royal Gazette has learned.

However, that recommendation was shot dead in the water after Government objected to having foreign soil shipped into the Island and opted to use local clay instead.

Now following another close inspection of the controversial batting strip over the weekend by Andy Atkinson has given local clay a decisive thumbs down and again suggested clay be imported from overseas in order to bring the Sports Centre's pitch up to par with the rest of the cricket world.

“It appears to me as though what we have here is basically a fundamental problem,” said Atkinson, who made a brief stopover to the Island over the weekend after holding cricket seminars in Barbados earlier last week.

“The soil is not strong enough to produce a long lasting wicket because of its sand content. It looks more suitable for growing carrots in it.”

Atkinson is the ICC grounds consultant responsible for overseeing all pitch preparations in the West Indies in the lead up to the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean and in the past has headed up the grounds staff at Lords, Edgbaston and also worked in Australia, Pakistan and South Africa.

“It's not really a soil that will go rock hard and produce a nice bouncy sort of pitch because it has such a quick drying capacity and there's not much binding capacity in the clay,” he continued.

“It's like sand and silt whereas what you look for in a cricket pitch is a drying content of about 30 to 50 percent, a certain amount of silt and a certain amount of sand.

“But what we have here is more like a golf green at the moment and so it looks as though we might have to change the soil to get a more suitable soil needed to produce good wickets. And I think this would help Bermuda come in to line with the rest of the world by producing the sort of pitches that are required to play a three day match on.”

Atkinson said playing on good grassed wickets would be beneficial to cricket and help to improve the local game overall.

“Until you can move to that sort of standard of cricket, cricket grounds won't move forward. And if you have intentions of playing in the World Cup, then you have to play on good pitches as well,” he added.

“It's like in Kenya when they play. They are very good playing at home but when they go on overseas tours they don't play as good and the same applies with Sri Lanka - they play on very slow wickets in their country and when they get out to somewhere like Australia where the ball bounces very much they struggle because they are not used to playing in those conditions.

“And I am not trying to advocate every wicket around the world should be the same, but obviously you would like to play or practice on pitches more realistic to everywhere else around the world.”

Atkinson also encouraged local groundsmen to adopt British methods of preparing cricket pitches instead of copying their counterparts in the West Indies.

“I always believed the Caribbean included Bermuda. But what I have now seen here the soil is not the same as in the Caribbean. I think preparing pitches here the way they do so in the Caribbean, Australia and South Africa is not the way to go,” he said.

“I think it might be better to prepare them much like we do back in the UK - which is allow a level of clay higher than what you have here and use rye grass which I believe would grow better in the cooler temperatures.”

Atkinson said today's rye grass is more tolerant to heat than it once used to be primarily due to new genetic and germinating methods.

He added: “But as far as my recommendations go, either find some soil which is more suitable within this Island - which could possibly be a problem because of the volcanic make up of Bermuda - or the Government can import some before the wickets can be reconstructed - and that was a recommendation suggested by a former colleague of mine Mike Coullier (deceased) before the original pitch was constructed.”

Test samples taken from the Sports Centre's pitch are to be sent to Florida for soil analysis, while Atkinson hopes to submit a final report to NSC Trustees by the end of the week.

“Particle analysis will be done to determine the soil's drying content, silt content, sand content and whether you have fine or medium sand,” Atkinson explained.

“And then the samples will undergo additional nutritional analysis to determine its nutrients, potassium, phosphates, salt levels and nitrogen contents. They will test the whole thing and then from there we can see what we have available over in England that can be sent across. But the crux of the whole matter is that the soil needs to be changed.”

Meanwhile, chairman of the NSC Board of trustees, Dr.Gerard Bean, confirmed Government did in fact go against recommendations submitted by top ICC pitch consultants by prohibiting foreign clay from ever entering the Island.

“We knew about it but did not petition the Government because of its very strict and almost impregnable policies of not allowing any soil into this country,” said Dr.Bean.

“That is the reason we did not import clay and we had ICC consultants here when we laid the pitch in respect to surface up there. And the clay on that pitch came from the Government quarry and some of the best clay in Bermuda comes from St.David's.”

The NSC Board of Trustees will now await Atkinson's report before deciding what course of action to pursue in the future.

“We have always been aware of this problem because we had advice from the ICC as to what type of clay that we should use,” Dr.Bean continued. “But we were also aware that Government had strict policies of not importing soil to Bermuda.

“But we will now await Atkinson's official report and this is not the first time test samples have been taken from a wicket. But the problem is we do not have the same type of clay as they do in England or the West Indies and most regions have entirely different climates and conditions.

“But it's important we do get it right and produce a first class pitch if we are to host any 2007 World Cup warm up matches when they are awarded.”