'Pace and Bounce': Who is Damian Hough, pioneering New York's World Cup pitch?

The T20 World Cup 2024 is scheduled to start on June 2, and the first match will be between the United States and Canada. The International Cricket Council (ICC) is conducting the T20 World Cup in the West Indies and the USA. After a month of constant entertainment, the finals will be played on June 29 in the West Indies. Cricket in the United States is something new, and most people aren't aware of it. The game is evolving along with the stadiums and the pitches.

US to host its maiden ICC tournament

This initiative by ICC to take the game to a country like the US is an effort to promote the sport at all levels. The United States doesn't pay much attention to the British colonial games and is ignorant about the ground and pitches. However, for the World Cup, which is a modular design, the 34,000-seat stadium is rapidly coming up in Nassau County's Eisenhower Park, some 30 miles east of Manhattan.

Significant progress has been made on the building of the East Stand, which has a capacity of 12,500 spectators. Cranes are actively constructing the modular structure and the foundations of the outfield, media, and premium hospitality pavilions. The stadium has been under construction for a long time and is almost ready for the big tournament. 

Let's know the man behind the brilliant work, Damian Hough:

However, the credit behind this stadium's makeover goes to one man and his team, Damian Hough. Therefore, the ICC went to Hough as their pitch doctor when they planned to utilize the biannual T20 World Cup to lead cricket's drive into the US market by holding matches at a location that had never hosted an international sporting event.

Under Hough's watch, the pitch of Nassau County's Eisenhower Park, New York, was transferred from the temperate sub-tropics of Florida to New York. Along the east coast of America, this transit was carried out in segments over the course of two days and 2000 km, passing through many climatic zones. Damian Hough was well aware of the criticism that would come his way because of these drop-in pitches, which are mostly the same in characteristics. However, Hough's smartness came into play, and he used some drop-ins that moulded the pitches so that they became precisely what the old Adelaide Oval Square used to be. 

After consulting former Adelaide Oval employee Dave Agnew, Hough sought local soil for the stadium. Furthermore, they chose 'Black Stick,' a dark clay-based soil used in pitchers' mounds at several US baseball venues that exhibits characteristics similar to cricket pitches found in Australia. Moreover, the pitches in the US were made in Florida, the warmest part of the USA during the winter. Since New York freezes most of the time and grass doesn't grow at that time of year, it was impossible to build pitches given the time frame. 

However, with Hough and his team's efforts, the pitches and the stadiums are almost ready before the T20 World Cup 2024. The US is about to witness an evolution in sports, which they will remember forever. 

India vs Pakistan on June 9, New York

Nassau County's Eisenhower Park, New York, is partly ready for the epic clash between India and Pakistan, which will be exciting to watch for the entire world. The last time these two teams met in the T20 World Cup, Virat Kohli played a fantastic role and clinched victory along with Hardik Pandya. That inning will forever stay rent-free in the minds of the Indians, and they hope to watch a similar contest in the upcoming days. 

As the pitches and stadiums are ready, the USA is finally ready to host its first cricket tournament. ICC's effort was to globalize the sport, and if it became popular in the country, then the USA would enter the cricket world and play matches in overseas countries like other teams.