I need miserable weather, says cricket groundsman
Rhianna Venables/BBCThe groundsman of Essex County Cricket Club has revealed he been watering the pitch in the middle of the night to keep it alive during the recent heatwaves.
Stuart Kerrison, head groundsman at the club, has been taking the drastic measures alongside his staff who have been working unsociable shifts to water the grounds in Chelmsford during the cricket season.
Essex residents have been subject to a hosepipe ban, but businesses are exempt if hosepipe use is necessary for commercial activities.
Kerrison said: "I could do with five days of miserable weather, it won't be great for the kids on summer holidays, but for our grass to survive that's what we need."
Rhianna Venables/BBCWhen speaking to BBC Essex's Around the Wicket presenter Victoria Polley, Kerrison said: "I'm coming out here in the middle of the night watering - I'm out here first thing this morning, I was out here just before 05:00 this morning watering so we're trying to make the most of that before the heat of the day really kicks in."
He added: "We've got to be conscious of the impact on our neighbours, it doesn't look great if we are in the middle of the field pumping water out in 29C heat in the middle of the day when our neighbours can't water."
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Kerrison is the longest serving member of staff at the cricket club and said over the years the grounds have had other summers "which have been comparable and we've had others that have been really wet".
"A lot of the south and the south-east has really struggled with regards to water."
He added if the club had a "decent amount of rain - a lot of this will come back, we saw it last year [but] some of [the grass] has died off".
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