Sawt Falasteen - Lay loving life as first lady of Lord's turf

"I always had a massive interest in agriculture and absolutely loved playing cricket," Lay told AFP in an interview at Lord's ahead of the ongoing first Test between England and New Zealand at the London ground.

"So to come across a job that combines the two perfectly has just been amazing.

"I'm just a farmer from New Zealand and I've played cricket my whole life," said Lay, who represented Old Collegians Boys in Christchurch. "I just grew up on my grandparents' farm near there.

It has been eventful journey for the 29-year-old, who arrived in England in 2022 and found herself living in the southwest city of Bristol, the headquarters of county cricket side Gloucestershire.

"I'd just come off a season harvesting peas out in New Zealand and so I'd saved up money and my plan was to just travel over the summer," recalled Lay. "I arrived in April and I thought I wouldn't look for a job until September, October.

"But I was living with a couple of professional cricketers. They came back from cricket one day and they just said our ground staff are really short.

"And I thought, 'if they're that short, I'll help them pull covers until they find someone qualified'. And then that was it.

"So I'd been in the country for about three weeks when that happened and stayed there for two years. And yeah, rest is history, really."

Lay's work in Bristol, which included helping prepare pitches for international matches, eventually led to a move to London and a post working under head groundsman Karl McDermott at Lord's, which this week is staging its 150th Test -- the most of any venue.

- 'Totally surreal' -

"It is totally surreal," said Lay. "It's surreal every time I walk out there. To be helping prepare a pitch for the Black Caps at Lord's is just something, if you'd told me that five years ago, I never would have believed you."

Lay also knows a couple of the New Zealand team playing at Lord's.

"New Zealand's a small country, so yeah, sort of run into Nathan Smith and Kyle Jamieson, I know them.

"We had Kane Williamson playing here last year (for Middlesex), and he's just such a lovely bloke," added Lay of the New Zealand batting great.

Preparing sports pitches has traditionally been a male-dominated trade, but Lay insisted she had encountered no difficulties on account of her sex.

"There aren't many women in the industry at all, I think it's two percent over here, which is shocking because it's a great job," said Lay.

"I haven't had a single bad experience. It's a great job, and there's no reason at all why a woman can't do it.

"People ask me if I miss playing cricket, but all the things I loved about playing, I get working with these guys. I'm outside in the sun, it's physical, they are my absolute best mates."

Next month there will be another landmark occasion at Lord's when it stages its first women's Test match, between England and India.

"Yeah, it's huge," said Lay, who was a member of an all-female grounds crew who prepared the pitch for last year's Women's Rugby World Cup final at Twickenham.

"I can't believe it hasn't happened before, so the pressure's on to produce a pitch that's going to really show the best of the women's game."

Just as women's football has particular issues with anterior cruciate ligament injuries, Lay believes not enough attention has been paid to the differing requirements of women's sports pitches, given most surfaces are prepared primarily with men in mind.

"The role doesn't exist yet, but one day I'd love to be a global consultant on women's pitches across all sports just because I really believe they have to be different," she said.

"That hasn't been talked about enough yet, but I think it will as women's sport becomes more professional."

H.Jarrar--SF-PST