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Gloucestershire responds to Cricket Regulator’s pitch investigation findings

11 September 2024

Gloucestershire CCC has received the findings from the Cricket Regulator’s pitch regulations investigation in relation to the abandonment of the County Championship match between Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire on Thursday 29th August.

Gloucestershire is pleased the Cricket Regulator has decided not to charge the Club with the alleged breach of the pitch regulations and in its findings, said Gloucestershire “did not deliberately prepare a pitch for the purposes of gaining a result or suiting a particular bowling attack”. While the Club accepts the Regulator’s findings, we remain disappointed at the match officials’ decision to abandon the match.

The Club has been significantly punished by the inability to compete for points in the match, suffering reputational damage and loss of matchday earnings in the process. Prior to the match we still retained hopes of challenging for promotion to Division One.

As with the preparation of all pitches at the Seat Unique Stadium, Gloucestershire’s Groundstaff do so at all times with the intention of creating a fair balance between bat and ball, irrespective of the opposition. As the Regulator points out in its findings, the Groundstaff “prepared the pitch as they had done previously” for a County Championship match against Middlesex earlier in the season, played on the same hybrid pitch which was rated as ‘good’. The Regulator goes on to say the pitch prepared against Northamptonshire “appeared to be of the same standard as previously prepared ‘good’ pitches”. In light of these comments, Gloucestershire looks forward to a dialogue with the Regulator on what more could have been done by the Club to, as the Regulator suggests, “ensure that the pitch performed better than it did”.

The Club will willingly engage with the ECB with regards to the preparation of pitches as recommended by the Regulator, and further, hopes the ECB will continue to engage with not just Gloucestershire, but all counties, on the preparation of hybrid pitches.

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