Making a Test wicket that is ‘true’, with an even bounce, that wears somewhat over time without breaking up, demands enormous skill. It requires the groundsman to prepare a grass sward that he (they are mostly he, even now) then shaves with a lawnmower so that, essentially, the playing surface is created by the closely intermeshed roots. These roots must survive being pummelled by a hard ball hitting it at up to 90mph over as many as five days. Even a ‘green’ pitch only has a tiny length of grass growing on it. (You might like to read: 5 cricketers who love fieldsports.)

Bents and fescues

Of course, saying that the wicket is composed of grass is like saying that the Mass in B Minor is composed of black and white notes. True but hardly the whole story. Up to about 15 years ago, they consisted of a mixture of ‘bents’ and ‘fescues’, the kind of fine grasses that you find on a bare northern hillside; that’s because they can survive sheep grazing, which resembles, in effect, very close mowing. Lately, dwarf perennial ryegrass cultivars have come on to the market that do the job as well but are a little easier to manage.

Groundsmen must also take account of rainfall, drying winds and the needs of plants for sustenance and protection from disease, pests and weed competition. Much is technical and depends on a range of machinery, especially these days when there is an understandable reluctance to use chemicals.

Meticulous

The best groundsmen, like the best gardeners and the best cricketers, are meticulous, precise, thoughtful and hard-working. This brings me to what happened in late January 2024 in Hyderabad, when India played England in the first Test of the 2024 series. Will any cricket lover ever forget Tom Hartley’s seven wickets for 62 in the second innings that enabled England to win by 28 runs? It was a bravura performance by a debutant slow left-arm spinner, who happens to come from a long line of practical gardeners. He is a Hartley of Hartley’s Nurseries in Lydiate, Merseyside, and spent his school holidays working for his parents in this family business, planting hanging baskets, pricking out seedlings and doing the all-important watering.

It seems obvious to me that gardening is excellent training for a Test cricketer or, indeed, anyone dedicated to getting to the top of their sport. It’s surely no accident that his father, Bill, fifth-generation boss of Hartley’s, won a gold in the men’s 4 x 400m relay at the European Championships in Rome in 1974. After his son’s stunning success on debut, he told The Daily Telegraph that working with plants helped Tom ‘see the problem-solving you need on a daily basis: attention to detail, good habits. If you want to produce a good pack of bedding plants, everything has to be in the right sequence at the right time. And it’s no different than preparing for any kind of sport.’ How satisfactory that a plant nursery can be a nursery for sporting talent as well.

There’s a lesson here for other young people, surely. Those who left school or university this summer and are searching round for something to do might like to consider getting a temporary job at their local park, garden centre, plant nursery or country house public garden. Even if it only gives them time to think through what they want to do in life, it will not be time wasted. You never know, it might just be the beginning of a lifelong fascination with plants and gardening. It was for me. After university, I worked for the summer in a famous garden close to home, and soon discovered in myself a strong desire to make gardening my career. And I have never for a moment regretted that youthful, left-field decision.