Another Aussie success on India’s cricket fields

t’s every cricket fan’s worst nightmare.

In international cricket, what follows rain is if anything, even more frustrating –rain delays. Crowds, television audiences and the cricketers themselves look helplessly on as the groundstaff scurry across the sodden outfield, implementing incredibly primitive methods such as siphoning the puddles of water away with buckets, or techniques not quite so orthodox, like calling upon a helicopter to dry the outfield, as was seen in Dunedin in a Test match between the West Indies and New Zealand last year.

Gordon Withnall experienced the same problem when he was playing a round of golf at the Liverpool golf course almost 35 years ago. His ball landed in a puddle of water. His friend Tom advised him: “Come on Gordon, you’re an inventor: invent a machine to remove all these puddles!”

Gordon obliged – the next day, he approached his son Len, who had been working for Gordon’s business Kuranda Manufacturing for three years, and said “Len, get some of that perforated metal lying down the back of the shed and roll it into a cylinder”. Within three days, the first prototype was built. The principle behind its operation was similar to that in the use of rollers for the past 150 years – but none of these devices squeezed the water through the perforated cylinder into a holding tank – the invention was indeed a world first!

After making the final of the ABC television show The Inventors (which is still aired these days), Len and Gordon made use of the ensuing publicity from this program, selling about fifty small “Super Sopper” units each year to schools, councils, tennis courts and cricket clubs.

In 1979, Ian Johnson, the arena manager at the Melbourne Cricket Ground called Gordon to Melbourne to discuss inventing a new larger roller which could dry the entire MCG – and it was here that things really began to take off for the Withnalls.

They designed a new prototype for Johnson, which used two rollers. Its appearance was, according to Len, “not dissimilar to Fred Flinstone’s automobile” (although, even Fred Flinstone’s car didn’t have the advanced hydraulic drive that was to be used in this machine!). It was essential to keep the machine as light as possible, so as not to damage the hallowed turf –lightweight tubing was used in a technique still employed today. Len recalls: “That year in Melbourne it was very wet, but the MCG was always dry thanks to the Super Sopper”.

Word spread quickly – soon, all the Victorian Football League clubs purchased a “Whale” Super Sopper, the company’s largest machine, which is powered by a 25 hp petrol engine, and can simultaneously pick up and pump away a staggering 7,000 gallons (nearly 26,500 litres!) of water per hour. Because of the lightweight tube, there is only about 2 kg of pressure on the ground per square inch, so the surface is not damaged. The popularity was so widespread that Len says he’s “actually driven from Sydney to Melbourne more than fifty times delivering “Whale” machines”.

Brind, the curator of “The Oval” in London, was so impressed with the demonstration of the ‘Whale’ Super Sopper that he ordered one to take back with him to England. Consequently, Lords and Canterbury Cricket Grounds also ordered a ‘Whale’ – and these days, Lords Cricket Ground has 6 ‘Whale’ Super Soppers at the ground, with some on trailers to transport to other grounds. Cricket playing countries around the world saw the machines, and now there are at least one or two ‘Whales’ at each ground.

In 1984, a Japanese company started purchasing ‘Whales’ and the smaller manuallyoperated ‘Sandpipers’ and ‘Minnows’ from the company, in very large quantities – at one stage, the father and son team were sending six hundred ‘Sandpipers’ a year to them. About ten years later, Gordon retired and sold the factory and land, which had become a residential area. Len moved the business to Taree, on the NSW mid-north coast, and business has once again started to boom; this time it is a result of India, Australia’s fastest growing major two-way trading partner.

With the 2011 Asian Cricket World Cup in mind, the Board of Control for Cricket in India has ordered seven new machines this month in what is the biggest single order for Super Soppers by the Indian Board, bringing the total number sold in India in the last three years to an enormous 42.

Trade Minister Simon Crean has congratulated the small family business, saying the company “is

Trading between India and the company was initiated by some Indian Cricket associations a few years ago – Len says it was a “bit hard” to do business with them, and indeed like all of us, they did “like to bargain” He has been to India once and says he enjoyed the visit.

L to R: Australia's High Commissioner to India Peter Varghese, Austrade Mumbai Executive Assistant, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Stephen Smith, Austrade's Senior Trade Commissioner to South Asia Peter Linford, and Australian High Commission's Economic & Political Counsellor, Sarah Hooper.

35 years on from that day at the golf course, the company has now sold over 180 ‘Whale’ units worldwide, to 11 different countries. What’s the future? Len says, “Good! If you think about it, there’s over 20 million babies born in India each year... and each one of these kids will grow up to play cricket!”

Maybe we won’t need the helicopters after all...