No work on the square today, but instead I can reflect on the state of the pitch during yesterday's game.
Batting first the home side made 167 which should have been higher, but was a decent target to defend. The pitch seemed to have good carry and bounce and it was the home side's struggle against spin bowling which kept the score down. Copmanthorpe pitches don't usually give much bounce to spin bowlers, but yesterday this was not the case and they even got some turn.
Woodhouse Grange openers found the pitch and bowling to their liking as they raced away to 30 without loss. They were then bowled out for 46 with Paul Wynn taking all 10 wickets for just 11 runs. As a groundsman you wonder if the pitch had deteriorated but none of the 8 'bowled' dismissals hit the stumps less than half of the way up with several hitting the top of off stump. The odd ball kept a little low and the odd one got up a little, so all in all not a bad pitch with 'something in it for the batsmen and something for the bowlers' as one player said.
3 p.m.:
The sun has now come out and it is really quite hot. The pitch has taken the rain well and there is not a lot of damage from yesterday, so I will need to make the decision to repair the foot holes and block holes, or not.
