By Cheryl Bromley
“Welcome to the WACA” greets you as you enter the ground from gate two.
The print boldly stamped on the east stand’s grey exterior.
On the left is the shed which is the working home for the most significant person, next to the players, for the up-and-coming Western Australian cricket season, and more importantly, the third Ashes Test in December.
Head curator Cameron Sutherland has been responsible for preparing the Western Australian Cricket Association (WACA) facility for five years.
People love the WACA Test, and there is always a strong interest in it, Sutherland said.
Perth’s Test has the highest rating figures because it goes back to the East at prime time, he said.
“It is a good wicket for bowlers so the pitch is judged purely on two things ‘pace and bounce.’”
The picture behind his desk best flaunts his passion for the game and ground.
It depicts the last wicket from the Ashes series 2006, when they actually won the Ashes.
AWACA member took the photo from the other side of the ground and emailed it in to us, so I had it blown up and framed, says Sutherland.
Since beginning his job, Sutherland has re-laid the whole cricket block in an effort to regain some of the surface characteristics it is renowned for.
“I don’t think we have had a bad wicket here, but not the characteristics people want in test matches and that creates debate,” he said.
“People perceive it was so much better back in the old days.”
“Different bowlers, different eras, and different games have all had an impact on it.”
“I personally think the folklore of the WACA has got bigger every year.”
The wickets on the east coast 20-30 years ago were low and slow, but now they have got quicker so the gap between the WACA is not so great.
Sutherland has had his critics, Australian captain Ricky Ponting has criticised the curator over the last few years stating “the ground had lost its unique qualities”.
Ponting also accused the Western Australian Cricket Association of “trying to engineer a five-day Test to maximise revenue.”.
Copping criticism is all part of the job, says Sutherland.
“A test match is a hard one. We tend to tone the pitch down a bit, our test matches are never draws and they usually only go four-days. If we put more life into the pitch, the game could be over in two-three days.
“That is where they were in the 90s, test matches only lasted two-three days and that creates a revenue disaster for the WACA because that is our main revenue drawcard.
“There has got to be a balance somewhere, we probably sacrifice the bounce and pace a little to get a good competition.”
“Sport is revenue generated,” said Sutherland. “That is how the bills get paid.
“What people don’t understand is how complex the job is now,” he said.
“People don’t know we actually have football here during winter and looking at the possibility of playing games at WACA again.”
The WAFL squad use the venue, State u/16s and u/18s play here, the Fremantle Dockers hold closed training sessions here, and various other AFL teams train at the WACA before they play at Subiaco, “so there is a lot of traffic on the ground.”
Former Australian batsman Justin Langer recently said “he knows there is a fine financial line,” when it comes to the Perth pitch, but “what he really, really would like to see for the third Ashes Test, is pace and bounce back in the wicket.”
We have done a lot of research on what the soil was like at the time of previous decades and what we have to do to get the specification back up to those characteristics, Sutherland said.
“There are a lot of issues we have to marry up.”
Cricket has been played on the former swampy land since the 1890s and for over 100 years the WACA has been taking wicket soil out of the same spot in West Waroona.
“Not just us but clubs and schools all over the state, possibly 100,000 tons of soil removed and the best soil has probably been taken.”
“We are looking at other areas - basically overflow from the river and sedimentary packing down of the silts and clay formation over thousands of years, and mineralogy of it, so unique,” Sutherland said.
“There are a lot of clays around but not the same characteristics of the WACA.”
WACA is a unique ground, other venues around Australia have new facilities but we have more character and history than anywhere else.”
Sutherland’s office is at the front of the shed, the facility looks like any shed you might see on a farm, with tractors and other maintenance equipment parked and ready for labour.
This part of the shed is over 100 years old, says Sutherland. It used to be the horse stables.
“The horses used to pull the rollers back in 1900s before the mechanical rollers.”
The museum used to be the curator’s house.
Roy Abbott who was the long serving curator 1951-1980 lived on site and that was the case until the mid 1980s, when the curator got sick of the interruptions, so they turned it into a museum, Sutherland said.
Another part of WACA history is dealing with the cracking which the ground is renowned for, he said.
“Soil cracks can swell to 3-4 inches wide and there is a lot of science in its management.”
In Abbott’s era, the clay was very hard soil to manage and it set hard like concrete which gave pace and bounce, Sutherland said.
“People say why don’t you put the same soil back in?”
But Roy had different playing conditions, never had any one day cricket, no 20/20 cricket, no international cricket, no women’s cricket, no second level cricket, had a limited Shield season and had one Test match.
“He didn’t have the volume of cricket that is played now and he could afford time for his wickets to repair.”
That era has gone.
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