The Curious Case of  the Khettarama Pitch

During the Compaq Cup tournament in Sri Lanka in September 2009, the teams batting under lights at the R. Premadasa (Khettarama) Stadium pitch consistently found it very difficult to bat and thus lost matches. Many were of the view that the pitch was helping bowlers a lot more during the evening making it very unfair for the team batting second. This paper is based on the study which was carried out by the authors at the request of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLQ to investigate the behaviour of the R. Premadasa Stadium (Khettarama) pitch. The study aimed to find out if there was any truth to the above claim by conducting insitu bounce tests and collecting top-dressing samples from the pitch at regular time intervals. The test was conducted during the hours of a normal day/night One Day International match would be played at this stadium and match conditions were simulated as far as possible. The variation of bounce with time was then compared with the moisture variation through the course of duration of play to see whether there were correlations between the two. Further, a theoretical discussion based on unsaturated soil mechanics and soil science on the effect of these factors is also included for better understanding.