SPORTS PITCHES
Groundbreaking and Ground- Making – How Hybrids Have Unlocked a New Era of Sporting
Hybrid pitches
T have emerged as a key ally in the fight to maintain toplevel performance in cricket. But there’ s a lot more this technology can offer the sport.
It’ s no secret the cricket calendar is a lot busier than it used to be.
So busy, in fact, that we now have a term for the challenge it lays down for those playing the game and maintaining the wickets throughout the year: fixture congestion.
It’ s all good for the game, though not without its challenges. Cricket is reaching more people than ever – and the diversity of formats has secured a future with new audiences across the world. But, in the UK at least, all this growth is happening within the same stadiums, many of which have existed for decades.
For groundspeople, there is now simply too much traffic to maintain a consistent and even bounce across all competitions, especially when relying solely on all-natural turf. It was this realisation that led the team at Edgbaston to consider a new surface technology – one that has unlocked a previously unattainable level of durability and consistency.
Theatre at Edgbaston
The move has created room for more double-headers and plenty of drama for the fans – a real boon for the‘ people’ s home of cricket’. It has also accommodated the growing success of the women’ s game, with the Bears now boasting both men’ s and women’ s squads.
However, as Gary Barwell, Edgbaston’ s Head of Sports Turf explains, reaching this point has been several years in the making. We caught up with Gary to get the full innings.
Left-field inspiration
Edgbaston is now one of a growing number of major cricket grounds with a SIS Grass Hybrid pitch installed on its main playing area. This work has been a huge success, allowing the stadium to better manage cricket’ s increasingly busy schedule without compromising performance. It’ s also provided parity, allowing the women’ s teams to practice and compete on the same pitches as the men.
The stadium’ s experiments with a hybrid pitch can be traced back to 2017 – and, oddly enough, because of an entirely different sport. While the technology has been around since the late‘ 80s and used for elite-level cricket competition since 2019, it was the hybrid’ s success in football that got the ball rolling in Birmingham:“ It all started after the Champions Trophy,” says Barwell.“ As one of three grounds used for the tournament, we began to see the square suffer and good playing conditions became much harder to maintain. Once it concluded, we began looking at our options. The hybrid concept emerged as a frontrunner after a visit to St. George’ s Park, the FA’ s national football centre.”
An interest in replicating hybrid’ s successes for cricket led Barwell to SIS Pitches – and more specifically SIS Grass Hybrid. Unlike other hybrid systems that are more complicated to install, SIS Grass Hybrid uses the patented Universal machine, injecting a small percentage of polymer fibre into a stadium’ s natural turf. This composition is more resilient to stresses created during play, helping to prolong the life of a playing surface, guarantee an even bounce and ease pressure on busy groundspeople. Completed installations are predominantly natural grass, with around 5 % of polymer fibre used. This ensures the characteristics of an allnatural pitch are maintained.
It was this mix of convenience, resilience and playability that appealed to Barwell, with Edgbaston subsequently trialling the technology in late 2017, ahead
64 GroundskeepingJournal. co. uk | September / October 2025