Why willows shade the rest when cricket starts planting trees? Cricket

IOn those dog days in late June, when it was too hot to do anything other than count down the hours until the sun set, the sport was also in demand. Horse racing was cancelled, a guest village provided shade during the Wimbledon qualifiers and school activities were wiped out across the UK, from sports days to the national rounders tournament.

In the third Test at Trent Bridge, where the England men played New Zealand in what turned out to be Ben Stokes’s last hurray, the England and Wales Cricket Board pushed the button on their extreme heat policy and did what they could to protect players and the crowd from temperatures that an open ground in the Midlands was not built to withstand.

There were additional water stations, along with regular reminders to the crowd to stay hydrated, more ambulances and more doctors. Stewards set up chairs in cooler parts of the stadium while players were provided with drinks. The first few days seemed more like an endurance event than a sporting celebration, and it was fitting that England went down in a blaze of shame.

It’s hard to soften against that extreme heat in cricketwith the exception of moving tee times to the evening and reducing the number of overs. The game takes place on an open field, over a long period of time, and at the grassroots level there are none of the fancy ice vests and isotonic rehydration experts available to the professionals.

But there’s one simple thing recreational – and premier – grounds can do to provide players and supporters with both shade and comfort: plant trees.

Trees are the earth’s natural lungs, ventilators and nurses. They provide shelter and help lower air temperatures, partly through shade, but also because they transpire and release water into the atmosphere. They massage the immune system, relieve stress, reduce air pollution – all for free.

There is one tree that stands out above all others for cricket fans, a quasi-religious symbol of the game and supplier of bats: the willow. Coincidentally, it is also a nature god.

Mark Cocker is a Guardian County naturalist and diarist and a judge for The Cricketer magazine Greenest cricket pitch competition. He says: “There are more invertebrates living on willows [452 species] than any other tree, with our oaks being the biggest contender [423]. They also support 160 lichens. They are important members of the natural community at key times of wider seasonal problems. Their March blossoms are a lifesaver for spring insects, while the trees’ infestations of 23 aphid species ensure they are rich sources of protein for birds all summer long.

“Willows are essentially ecosystems. They also have a secret power that is incredibly useful, which is the ability to ‘clean up’ polluted soils and water, a process known as phytoremediation. They are able to absorb heavy metals, excess nutrients and pesticides from polluted environments. So they are nature’s cleanup team.”

Willows also grow incredibly quickly, reaching their full height in 20 years, unlike the mighty but unhurried oak. They propagate easily from cuttings. Cocker cut some canes to support his onions this spring and they took root in his vegetable garden. Just don’t plant them next to the clubhouse or a drainage system, he warns, and if your cricket pitch is anywhere dry, make sure your cutting is submerged in the water table. A native species best supports wildlife – and amateurs won’t be able to grow willows to make their own bats.

There is scientific support for the power of trees. Researchers from the University of Cambridge discovered that this was possible extremely effective in lowering air temperature in urban environments – up to 12 degrees in some places – but they had to be the right trees, in the right places.

Ronita Bardhan, professor of sustainable built environment and health at Cambridge, thinks planting trees around cricket pitches is easier. “The wide open space of a cricket field allows heat to escape quickly and trees help you ventilate. The leaves are like the blades of a fan and will displace and push up the air that collects near the cricket field. And that is very important.

“So it’s a good idea to have cricket pitches lined with trees, as long as the trees are not very aggressive in the sense that they change the wind speed in such a way that it works against the game of cricket itself. So I think willows are actually very good in that environment.”

We know which way temperatures are heading – in Britain we’ve just had the hottest May and June days on record, while another European heatwave threatens the stages of the Tour de France.

Inequality means that the poorest populations suffer most from extreme heat, making trees around our urban sports fields even more important, and they also help control flooding during periods of heavy rainfall. Planting is not an instant solution, but it is simple, relatively cheap and a positive thing we can do for those who come after us in a climate-changed world.

There is a shortage of willows for cricket bats, which bamboo could remedy. Planting willows is therefore symbolic in many respects. A tree that has cared for the game for hundreds of years and now protects it for the future. And a touch of romance for cricket fans who want nothing more.

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