ELITE CRICKET
SPECIAL REPORT
EVOLUTION NOT REVOLUTION As Lord’s Cricket Ground embarks on what many would argue will be its busiest summer of first-class cricket, newly-appointed head groundsman Karl McDermott takes time out to explain his approach to the job at the Home of Cricket
K By Colin Hoskins Features editor
14 THE GROUNDSMAN May 2019
arl McDermott is the first to admit that as he enters his first season as head groundsman at Lord’s Cricket Club, he will not act like a bull in a china shop. “We’ve got a very busy summer of cricket here,” says the 43-year-old Irishman, “and I will initially be studying everything that’s going on with the pitch as the season progresses, letting the playing surface – and my role – gradually evolve as the season goes on. My aim is to produce wickets that offer something for everyone, batsmen and bowlers alike.” There is, he says, no need to come into the job and make instant changes simply for the
sake of it: “There’s no need for a ‘new broom’ attitude towards a pitch and an established grounds team that has historically continued to deliver first-class cricket.” Joining the Home of Cricket on 1 December 2018, after nine years at Hampshire Cricket Club, Karl spent his first month overlapping with the retiring Mick Hunt, who had headed the team caring for the surface in St John’s Wood, London, for 49 years.
VOICE OF EXPERIENCE
“That time spent with Mick was invaluable. He pointed out every idiosyncrasy and the potential problems of a pitch that has been built on London