Ram­nath Per­sad

Cu­ra­tors play a vi­tal role in mak­ing sure play­ing sur­faces—fields and crick­et pitch­es—are fit for play. Cu­ra­tor­ship in­volves us­ing sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge, skills and care­ful ef­fort to main­tain and man­age col­lec­tions. In this job, weath­er can be ei­ther our biggest help or our biggest hur­dle. While rain can be a cu­ra­tor’s kryp­tonite, be­ing flex­i­ble is em­pow­er­ing.

Cu­ra­tors and groundskeep­ers per­form many tasks, in­clud­ing op­er­at­ing equip­ment, con­duct­ing soil and turf analy­ses, and man­ag­ing pests and dis­eases in en­vi­ron­ments that up­hold the high­est stan­dards of health and safe­ty. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, we serve as ad­min­is­tra­tors, weath­er fore­cast­ers (for um­pires) and, most im­por­tant­ly, spe­cial­ists in field and pitch prepa­ra­tion.

We work dai­ly with var­i­ous stake­hold­ers, such as man­agers, staff, and clients with­in the work­place hi­er­ar­chy. These clients are our agents and ad­vo­cates, who can ei­ther im­prove the qual­i­ty of our work or harm our rep­u­ta­tion with a sin­gle in­ter­view or ar­ti­cle. Play­ers, man­agers, coach­es, spec­ta­tors, com­men­ta­tors, and the pub­lic are our most im­por­tant au­di­ence. There­fore, we are ded­i­cat­ed to main­tain­ing high stan­dards of cus­tomer ser­vice to en­sure client sat­is­fac­tion.

Cu­ra­tors face on­go­ing scruti­ny and pres­sure, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing crick­et tour­na­ments in the rainy sea­son, par­tic­u­lar­ly near the end, when weath­er con­di­tions can sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect who ad­vances or is elim­i­nat­ed. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, spon­sors and in­vestors pour sig­nif­i­cant funds in­to these events, and the “show must go on.” In such sit­u­a­tions, cu­ra­tors de­pend on their ex­pe­ri­ence, in­no­va­tion, and some­times un­con­ven­tion­al meth­ods to cre­ate en­gag­ing con­di­tions.

Weath­er is cru­cial for pitch prepa­ra­tion; a suit­able pitch usu­al­ly re­quires at least sev­en days of prepa­ra­tion to en­sure good con­di­tions. Prepar­ing dur­ing the rainy sea­son is risky be­cause ex­ces­sive mois­ture can make the pitch un­playable if it doesn’t dry prop­er­ly. Con­verse­ly, too lit­tle mois­ture leads to an un­der-pre­pared sur­face. Bowlers may strug­gle to get bounce or turn, and bats­men might find it hard to play shots as the ball stays low.

Whether it’s scorch­ing at 34°C dur­ing the dry sea­son or rain­ing fre­quent­ly in the wet sea­son, cu­ra­tors work hard to cre­ate qual­i­ty play­ing sur­faces that meet the stan­dards of or­gan­i­sa­tions like the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil. Work­ing in these con­di­tions is very de­mand­ing and can af­fect the health of ground staff. We of­ten call our­selves “old gal­vanise” be­cause we work sev­en days a week, in both sun and rain. In this line of work, we’re usu­al­ly the first to ar­rive and the last to leave, since there’s al­ways work be­fore and af­ter match­es. Our day typ­i­cal­ly starts at 7 am with re­mov­ing cov­ers and ends around 7 pm af­ter prepar­ing for the next day. The phys­i­cal­ly de­mand­ing work, long hours, harsh con­di­tions, and low wages make this job un­at­trac­tive to many.

The short­age of for­mal­ly trained staff is an­oth­er prob­lem, as there are no cu­ra­tor­ship pro­grammes in the Caribbean re­gion. This makes it more dif­fi­cult for ground staff to get pro­mo­tions, be­cause they of­ten lack cer­ti­fi­ca­tions to prove their knowl­edge, even though they have years of ex­pe­ri­ence. This cre­ates a dis­in­cen­tive and dis­cour­ages ca­reers in this field.

Be­yond staff short­ages, lim­it­ed re­sources can great­ly af­fect the per­for­mance of cu­ra­tors and their teams. For in­stance, old or dam­aged equip­ment can cre­ate un­even and in­con­sis­tent sur­faces. Specif­i­cal­ly, dull blades re­sult in un­even cuts, which hin­der ball move­ment and may cause sog­gy out­fields. If these is­sues aren’t fixed prompt­ly, they can lead to game de­lays, and some­times even can­cel­la­tions and neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty.

Not all days are tough—some go smooth­ly, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the dry sea­son when you on­ly need to re­move cov­ers be­fore play. It’s very sat­is­fy­ing when both bat­ters and bowlers per­form at their best, with strat­e­gy and skill shap­ing the out­come. Be­sides de­liv­er­ing world-class pitch­es, we al­so en­joy prepar­ing some of the best cur­ry duck and fish broth for staff and vis­i­tors.

Al­though cu­ra­tors and ground staff of­ten go un­no­ticed by play­ers, of­fi­cials, me­dia, and fans, they re­main pas­sion­ate about their work and take pride in con­tribut­ing to sports by cre­at­ing playable sur­faces.

Ram­nath Per­sad grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and has 20 years of ex­pe­ri­ence as a turf and sports field cu­ra­tor, spe­cial­is­ing in field re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and crick­et pitch prepa­ra­tion. He is al­so pas­sion­ate about taek­won­do, hold­ing a third-de­gree black belt and more than 15 years of ex­pe­ri­ence.