Short pitch: Ferrybridge

The sight of Mount Parnassus rising above the National Cricket Stadium in Grenada has become familiar to those of us following the 2nd West Indies v England Test this week. The dark green wooded slopes are speckled with white houses, which might give the best view from a domestic property of an international ground apart from the flats around the Oval.

Despite Grenada’s backdrop, the most striking image I have seen this week of the environment of a cricket ground is reproduced here.

The ground belongs to Ferrybridge ‘C’ Power Station CC in West Yorkshire. My coaching colleague, Abi Bates, played a match there for Vernon Carus. During that match, Abi said she thought it had begun to rain. It turned out to be condensate from the cooling towers.

That reminded me of my first club cricket ground: Chalfont St Giles, in South Buckinghamshire. It was situated close to an abatoir. Late in the afternoon, if the ground was downwind, smoke from the slaughterhouse chimney would drift, noxiously across the ground. It wasn’t something you wasted photographic film recording.