Queens Park ground too wet, match rescheduled

Another Hawke Cup fixture at Queens Park has had to be rescheduled because of a sodden outfield.

But Southland cricket official Ian Mockford believes the ground is "70 to 80 per cent" better than three years ago.

Southland was set to open its 2009-10 Hawke Cup campaign against South Canterbury in Invercargill tomorrow.

Heavy rain on Monday night put Southland cricket's redeveloped main ground underwater and officials were forced to make the tough call to scrap this weekend's two-day game because the turf couldn't be dried quickly enough.

In 2006 Invercargill hosted a national twenty20 tournament and some games were transferred to nearby Southland Boys' High School, because the city's No1 cricket venue was too wet.

That same year a Hawke Cup fixture between Southland and North Otago was abandoned because of a downpour. This prompted then Southland Cricket boss Richard Hoskin to urge the ground's landlord, the Invercargill City Council, to make improvements to the outfield.

Mockford, the joint Southland Cricket Association chief executive, believed big improvements had been made with the council digging up small parts of the ground and improving drainage.

However, he conceded the ground still struggled to cope during consistently wet weather.

A major overhaul of the ground could be done to try improve the entire outfields drainage which would include ripping up the whole ground and starting from scratch.

"The problem we have is, when do we do it?," Mockford said yesterday.

"Say we did it March, it would mean the ground would be out of use for most of the next season."

Mockford said he didn't want to halt the momentum of regular games and international fixtures. He believed the main issue was scheduling. Invercargill generally had wet weather in the months of October and November and Mockford felt in hindsight holding a Hawke Cup game in Invercargill this month was a push.

In 2006 the Southland-North Otago game was abandoned because of the waterlogged outfields. However, this time around Southland and South Canterbury are trying to get the game rescheduled to either January or February.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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