An artificial wicket on the square

We take the artificial wicket for granted these days; however when the Club decided to lay one in 1993 it caused a bit of controversy.  In this article for the club programme in 1993, Brian Bergin reports on the early games played on it.

The Holy Ground

By Brian Bergin

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No. Shock, horror and amazement it’s an “artificial wicket”.

Yes, thanks to an anonymous donation of a sum of money from a club member to purchase, a “magic carpet” has been laid down on the sacred square of Clontarf Cricket Club.

Clontarf have now joined several other senior cricket clubs in Leinster to lay an artificial wicket on their ground with the intention of easing the work load on the ground-staff and also to use this wicket if weather permits no play on the grass wickets.

After many months of deliberation it was finally decided to place the wicket close to the clubhouse and to be used by the Taverners of the club and by any other teams, men and ladies, except by the men’s 1^st, 2nds, and 3^rd XI, in both league and cup matches.

Matches can now be played although one hears that:

“It’s too close to the clubhouse”

“It spoils the look of the ground”

“It is much better to have it close to the pavilion”



Clontarf CC hosted the ICC Trophy in 2005



To date there have only been about three games played on the “artificial”. The Tavrners were the first to use it, but due to the weather the match had to be abandoned.

The honour of the first official league match fell to the 6^th XI.  It was the day after the Australian match with the opposition being Leinster.  The 6ths might have played on the Australia wicket but it would have been unfair to call on the ground staff to prepare a wicket after such a hectic day.  So it was decided earlier in the week that the game would be played on the “artificial” and he opposition had to be informed that both the batsmen and the bowlers could not use spikes.  Unfortunately our 6ths lost, Leinster batted first making over 200 runs from 45 overs with Clontarf making 160 runs in reply, with Thomas Moore scoring this first half-century (in senior cricket) since he joined the club. 

The third match was the very exciting Tillan Cup semi-final between Clontarf 2^nd and Phoenix 2nd. I could not repeat what the Phoenix official said when he was informed that the match was being played on the mat.

As it turned out, it was a very exciting encounter with Phoenix 12 runs short of Tarf’s big total of 165.

A sight to be seen was that of Podge Hughes and John Lyon bowling on the wicket a couple of days after it was put down. Was this a hint to the club captain and the selectors of a return to the game?

Now that we are three-quarters of the way through the season, only a handful of matches have been played on this “artificial wicket”, let’s hope that in the coming season it will be used a lot more.