FORMER St Patrick’s bowler Heath Naughton will always call Xavier High School’s wicket his home patch in Cricket Albury-Wodonga ranks.
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But there is 22 yards at Lavington Oval which is growing closer to his heart each day.
Naughton started preparing the wicket for Tuesday’s Border Bash matches only days after the Ovens and Murray Football League grand final day deluge.
With Albury Council sidekick Wally Shannon by his side, the wicket has gone from a mud heap to surface fit to host first-class cricket.
“It’s come a long way,” Naughton said.
“To turn it around from O and M grand final day when we had the best part of an inch-and-a-half of water sitting on the wicket table is pretty amazing.
“We had to try and get grass cover back so we over-sowed with rye grass and top-dressed the two wickets we were going to use.
“Fifteen wheelbarrows went off the wicket just to thin it out a bit.
“We pretty much started from scratch.”
Naughton, who did his green-keeping apprenticeship at Barooga Sporties as a youngster, has been in regular contact with North Sydney Oval head curator Perter Devlin over the past two months.
He is confident the wicket will produce plenty of runs.
“It will be nice and flat and hard,” he said.
“It’s been a long time since I have seen a wicket this white out here.
“We pretty much started on October 14 and I’ve been coming out on weekends and before and after work.
“It’s been a massive, massive challenge but I’ve really enjoyed it.
“Hopefully everything goes well and we can get more games in the future.”
Ironically, Naughton’s boss at Barooga – Mick Cornish – has been working around the clock preparing the wicket for the Pakistan and Cricket Australia X1 match in Cairns.
“I learnt a few tricks of the trade from Mick when I was younger,” he said.
“We just backed ourselves in and haven’t been afraid to ask questions along the way either.”
Council and CAW officials are confident of attracting 8000 to 10,000 people with ticket sales picking up strongly in recent days.
Fine weather has been predicted for the matches with the main gates opening at 9am.
Meanwhile, Sydney Thunder will hold a free clinic at Urana Road Oval from 4pm to 5.30pm on Monday.
Full squads will be in attendance with the clinic coinciding with the official opening of New City’s nets.
Melbourne Stars will run a clinic at Kelly Park on Monday.
