It was an exciting time for cricket fans last week, with the release of the schedule for next year's Cricket World Cup which is taking place in England and Wales between 30 May and 14 July.
Amongst the headlines such as the opener being England taking on South Africa at the Oval and defending champions Australia starting their defence against qualifiers Afghanistan in a day-nighter in Bristol - it was something which was omitted from the announcement which was also quite significant.
For a long time it had been mooted that the London Stadium, home to West Ham United, would be utilised as a venue during the tournament, via the use of drop-in pitches. You can see why the idea appealed to the organisers. In theory being able to play in front of record numbers of cricket fans, in one of the country's prestige stadiums would be a real coup for the tournament. However, as many cricket ground specialists could very well have predicted, it didn't turn out to be quite as simple as that.
The main reason given by the organisers is that costs for converting the London Stadium to cricket were discovered to be prohibitively expensive. Speaking at Lord's last week the tournament's managing director Steve Elworthy was quoted by media outlets as saying, "It was probably more than 18 months ago that we commissioned drop-in portable pitches to be grown and potentially sent to the London Stadium.
"But after we understood the unique elements of what cricket would require in that stadium we found ourselves at the point where the infrastructure costs were probably going to be way too much.
"It was disappointing because we spent so much time on it, but I think it was the right decision for the tournament."
Tellingly, England's one-day captain, Eoin Morgan, who probably isn’t as concerned with the costs to the organisers as he is how his team would fare playing in unusual conditions, told the BBC that the omission of the stadium was "not terribly disappointing".
He went on to say, "The spectacle of playing in front of 60,000 would have been exciting, but we haven't played there before so an element of unpredictability might have crept in with no previous record at the ground."
It does seem that this could well have been a bullet dodged for fans and players alike. Followers of the game have suffered before, watching long, drawn out wars of attrition played on drop-in pitches. A recent high-profile example was of course at the MCG during the last Ashes series - with that surface facing a barrage of criticism for its lifelessness. Of course the World Cup is a different format of the game, but concerns would persist as to how these pitches would perform.
Turf professionals who specialise in the sport understand just how unique playing surfaces for the game of cricket truly are. However much a temporary venue might appeal in terms of ticket sales, it's more than likely to suffer in comparison to an established ground's lovingly grown-in and maintained wicket.
In a superb article from the Indpendent a few days ago, their chief sports writer Jonathan Liew, catalogued the timeline which the Cricket World Cup and the London Stadium have gone through to reach the conclusion that the two parties aren't suitable for each other.
He sums up the unique magic of the 22 yards between the two sets of stumps perfectly, writing that a cricket pitch is, " . . an organism borne of nature but which could never exist naturally, [and is] subject to any one of a million kaleidoscopic variables that will fundamentally alter how a cricket ball behaves on contact with it."
Jonathan's assessment is true advocacy of the role of professional cricket's groundstaff. It is their expertise and dedication which gives a platform for players to thrill and delight cricket fans worldwide.
Thankfully, for the good of next year's tournament, this professionalism will be given a chance to shine as a vital element of the game's appeal. Fans of the sport should be delighted that this has not been overlooked in favour of potentially filling a few more seats.
