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Around the Pavilion is a weekly series featuring those actively behind the scenes at Kensington Oval during the 2001 Busta Cricket Series. This week, we begin with a profile of groudsman Richard Applewhaite.

Whenever the word groundsman is mentioned in club cricket circles, one of the first names that comes to mind is 'Apple'. Richard Applewhaite is one of the island's most respected curators.

Some, however, see him as controversial.

They make that judgement on the basis that the pitches he prepares at the Empire club ground at domestic level are often loaded with grass.

There is a presumption in some quarters that he does it to deliberately favour his club's bowlers.

"Some people feel so, but that is not true. There grass is there to get play as much as possible when there is rain," Applewhaite told SUNSPORT.

One only has to speak to him for a few minutes to realise that he strives to provide the best possible surfaces.

"I believe that the best wickets anybody can play on are grass wickets. The grass helps hold the mould together," he said. "If it is dirt and the rain falls, it makes your work harder. If the rain falls, it washes off all the grass and then you have to start fresh. If the wicket has grass in it, you do not have to go through all of that."

Applewhaite, a groundsman at Empire for almost 25 years, is also on the Kensington Oval staff during first-class and international matches and has worked his way up the ladder to be the No. 2 behind chief Hendy Davis.

There is a difference in the way 'Apple' approaches pitch preparaton at Bank Hall than he does at Pickwick Gap.

"The things that you can do at first division, you cannot do at Test or first-class level," he said.

"There are two different things altogether. At first division, you can come two or three days before a match and get out a wicket. For first-class or Test cricket, you have to get more time to get the wicket hard and get a true bounce."

Applewhaite has come a long way since he started at Bank Hall in the mid-1970s. In those days, as a resident of Progressive Road, he used to go around the club to assist Eddie Welch and a lanky jovial friend known as 'Tall Boy' and started out mainly by helping with the cutting of the outfield.

As time went on, Tony King, the former outstanding Empire and Barbados batsman who was responsible for the supervision of pitch preparations at Kensington, brought Applewhaite down to the Oval.

At Bank Hall, 'Apple' works six days a week, starting from as early as 6 a.m. on some days and during the regional and international season, he is at Kensington seven days a week.

It can put some pressure on his personal life, but the 41-year-old father of four does not mind.

"Some days I get to work at 6 a.m. and leave a 7 p.m., but I like the work. I have been doing it for a long time and I just love the job."

Applewhaite, who grew up in Station Hill with fellow Parkinson schoolmate, the late Malcolm Marshall, has never seriously played cricket. But he is a skilled sportsman, having represented Empire as a goalkeeper in football and a defender in hockey.

These days, his skills as a groundsman are what he is best known for.

© The Barbados Nation