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It’s 9am on a chilly morning in Dubai, but the groundstaff are already on the field at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, with rollers out. That might seem like a late morning to them because when the ILT20 starts – and later the Champions Trophy 2025 – they’ll be working from 6am on match days. That’s what it takes to put on a good show for a cricket match.
Overseeing it all will be Matt Sandery, the Adelaide-born head curator for Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi. “On a matchday, we work long hours. That’s the nature of it. It’s what tournaments entail. All the staff want to make sure we’re a world-class T20 event. This is what it takes mate!,” Sandery tells TimesofIndia.com from Dubai, where preparations are on in full swing for the third edition of the ILT20.
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The challenges of hosting a high-profile event that will attract top T20 stars and a lot of eyeballs across the world are many. There’s going to be 34 games played between January 11 and February 9, across three venues. That’s a pretty heavy workload. And it’s not like the stadiums at Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi are homogenous. They each have their unique characteristics, and each needs to be readied accordingly. Then there’s the weather swings, and dew to contend with.
“The UAE provides such a unique environment. Sharjah is 25 minutes away from Dubai and it is completely different playing conditions compared to the Dubai Stadium because our roof at the Dubai Stadium is a quite unique structure,” Sandery says. “It stops a lot of sunlight coming in, so we’ve got to manage our moisture levels, our grass growing techniques and things like that. And Abu Dhabi which is an hour away, has a massive grandstand at one end but has 95% full sunlight for about 10 hours a day. So they get different growing and preparation conditions which really help them. But yeah, we manage it. UAE varies in temperature. This morning, some reports were saying it was down to single figures and only two months ago, it was 50 degrees!”
Sandery expands on the differences between the three venues. “Sometimes, during the winter, the pitches get only six hours of sunlight,” he says of Dubai. “The grand side of the arena stops the wind flowing through, so that’s another thing. When there’s wind, there’s no dew. The dew settles when there is no wind. So you have to factor in the roof, the stadium itself, the ground conditions, sunlight… That’s where our methods will change in Dubai compared to say, Abu Dhabi. They’re completely open, most of the ground. So the wind can come through.
“And then Sharjah is so unique and so cool. I love going there. It’s got so much history. It has lower grandstands, and the wind comes through. I really think the ground at Sharjah is as close as I’d get to seeing a game in India, without going to India. The hustle and bustle of the roads around, the people who come… I really, really love Sharjah. We’re trying to get more pace out of our pitches there. We’ve changed some of our processes there. We’re trying to leave as much turf on the pitches for as long as possible, and then cutting the grass off when we need to. To make sure the ball comes on and batters can hit through the ball.”
The third edition of the ILT20 will have several T20 megastars, and Sandery is keen that spectators get their money’s worth. For that, players will need pitches to be true, and in keeping with the format, a bit batting-tilted. Although Sandery adds that it’s not like bowlers will have nothing.
“If they have the right cricket smarts, bowlers will succeed,” he says. “I don’t want the pitches to be turning too much, that’s not good for T20 cricket. Or for ODIs. Our plan is to be consistent, not just to help one type and not the other… We’ll keep making fast-based pitches. Fours and sixes, that’s what the crowd wants to see, so we won’t change anything. I’m really happy with the process we’ve got. We want the players to be able to hit through the ball and have confidence in our pitches, and go out there and put a show on for the crowds and the fans.”
What that entails is smart management of the pitches that will be played on. Sandery has drawn up a rotation plan, so that no pitch, at any of the venues, is overused, and each surface gets adequate rest before coming into play again.
Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the bigger stadiums, will have five pitches used in rotation, while Sharjah has three.
“Over a lengthy tournament, by the time you go back to a pitch it’s as fresh as possible. If you keep re-using the same pitch, it gets lower and slower, and it’s not good for cricket,” Sandery explains. “It doesn’t matter who’s playing here, we just want to produce the best pitches. We just want to put the UAE out there, ‘We’ve got the best playing pitches. Come, watch us!’ That’s basically what I’m trying to achieve.”
The one thing that Sandery cannot control entirely, though, is nature. More specifically, dew. But even there, he and his crew will be taking measures to mitigate against it as much as possible. It starts with a big outfield roller that goes over the playing area to take the dew off, after which the entire outfield is sprayed with a chemical.
“It’s like a slicker. It rubs itself around the leaf. You know when you put oil and water together, they don’t mix? It’s like that, so the dew doesn’t stick to the leaf. It kind of slips off and goes down into the surface. It lasts about 24 hours. Depending on the weather, dew can obviously still form, but not as heavy.”
All of which takes time, effort, care and attention to detail. Which is why Sandery and his staff are already at work in the morning, and will be there at the crack of dawn come game day.
(This story is authored by Saurabh Somani who is a Pondicherry-based freelance cricket writer. In his spare time, he watches the game anyway.)
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