By Nick Creely

The Adelaide Oval Turf Solutions team has been named as a finalist in TheStadiumBusiness Awards for 2025, with the innovative work done by head curator Damian Hough and his crew for the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in New York recognised in the Venue Technology category.

Adelaide Oval Turf Solutions – a consulting arm of the grounds team – works with other venues across the state, Australia and globally and has developed a formidable reputation in the industry. 

The Venue Technology awards aim to recognise sporting venues that have delivered innovative and integrated technology to transform and improve operations.

Hough and his team first constructed drop-in cricket trays and six wickets (ten were constructed in total) specifically designed for the 2024 ICC Men’s Twenty20 World Cup in the West Indies and United States across an ambitious period from October 2023 until the tournament in June. 

The drop-in trays were first manufactured in Adelaide and were carefully shipped to Florida for assembly in collaboration with LandTek Group, then were filled with local soil and laid with Tahoma 31 Bermuda grass and rolled, watered, monitored, and manicured across five months before being eventually transported to New York (pictured right) in time for the World Cup.

Hough said he was proud of his team’s ability to build the business and deliver some outstanding results, including the ambitious World Cup project.

“We’ve been chipping away at this business for a number of years, it’s taken a lot behind the scenes to get to this stage,” he said. “It’s happened a lot quicker than what we probably expected, and we have had some great opportunities, and it all comes down to the support from the team to the board and everyone involved.

“I could not be prouder. The work we undertook for the World Cup was challenging, the timelines were extremely tight and upon reflection I am proud of the work everyone did to get the pitches playable.”

The announcement comes as the drop-in wickets they prepared have arrived at the Oakland Coliseum in California from their former home in New York ahead of the 2025 Major League Cricket which kicks off from June 12 and runs until July 13. The pitches took five-days on the road to be moved across the other side of the US.

Over the next month, the drop-in pitches will be stationed at a pop-up nursery in the carpark of the Oakland Coliseum and installed on the field in time for the 2025 tournament. Hough and his crew will be carefully managing the pitches and will be flying back-and-forth as well as consulting with the local teams on the ground to ensure they are match ready.

“I went over with LandTek, they’re an American company we’ve built a strong relationship with and they’re world-class operators mainly down the East coast of America, and we’ve sort of aligned back with them to do this project on behalf of Major League Cricket,” he said.

“We have moved two of the ten pitches from the pop-up stadium (in New York) and put on the trucks on the Thursday morning, drove for the five days and eventually sat them down in the carpark at the Oakland Coliseum. 

“We located an area to place them with Dave Agnew, the head curator of Major League Cricket and another Adelaide boy, so between Dave, Major League Cricket and LandTek, a location was found and we built a pad for these trays to be housed in, pretty similar to what you’d do in Australia but they’re sitting on the bitumen on a bed of sand.”

Hough said it was all about careful management of the pitches in the lead-in to the tournament.

“We’ve bedded them down there so we can spend the following two weeks just growing them back in, getting them used to the environment and consolidating them,” he said. “After four-and-a-half days of driving and the vibrations from the east to the west of the country, it is like Sydney to Perth but a little longer so it’s a long drive for the drop-ins and they’re in halves, but they handled the trip well.

“But it’s an unknown within the profile, you don’t know how it’s gone so for us it’s about getting some work back into them to tighten them back up and manage any movement within the profile in case of any vibrations.”

Hough is back in Adelaide after overseeing the transportation process and will return to California in the lead-up to the tournament. Colleague Caleb Hearn is still in the US working with the local team to help manage the pitches.

“We went over there for 18 days initially, and we’re now working with Dave, LandTek and the curator at the Oakland Coliseum Clay Wood and his team to manage this project,” he said. “Caleb’s still there and I go back in two weeks on the 29th to do that final intense preparation for the tournament. 

“They’ve got a soccer game four days before the tournament and we bring them in a couple days out, excavate out a bit where they’re going and get the base right, pop the trays in and get it all ready.”

Images: Courtesy of Sarah Reed/Adelaide Oval