Western Australian Cricket Association (WACA) ground curator Cameron Sutherland is confident his five-year plan to restore the WACA's fearsome reputation for pace and bounce is on track, despite expecting a difficult summer ahead.
Sutherland said in the last two years, seven of the WACA's 10 pitches had been re-laid, with it usually taking two to three years for these to settle effectively.
However, with almost 50 days of cricket planned for the summer ahead, including December's Test match against South Africa, Sutherland said there was plenty of challenges ahead for the WACA's ground staff.
"It (the number of matches) makes it obviously tougher on new wickets," said Sutherland, speaking at an annual meeting of curators from across Australia.
"You normally allow for two or three years for them (the new pitches) to settle and compact and really bed in."
"But obviously with cricket scheduling and that, we haven't got that luxury, so this year's going to be another interesting year or tough-ish year, where we're trying to settle in wickets as well as playing important games on them and that's part of the challenge I suppose of curators."
"But, as long as we know where we want to head and what results we want to get down the track. We've put in a five year plan and we're probably two years into it and that plan is ongoing, so that's where we're heading," he said.
Sutherland said the plan's ultimate goal was to restore the WACA's reputation for fearsome pace wickets, one's which saw the West Indian fast bowlers tear through the Aussies time and time again during the 1980s.
"Certainly, that's the goal to get a more traditional characteristic back into it and we believe we took some really big steps last year, turning it around. But we've just got to continue that progress this year."
"We'll probably have our ups and downs but we've just got to know what our ultimate goal is, what we're out to achieve and that's to get that characteristic in it and that's going to take time to do it," Sutherland said.
And, the curator also said he was excited to be involved with preparations for the first interstate cricket match to be held outside the WACA ground, when the Warriors take on South Australia in a Ford Ranger Cup clash at Bunbury's Hands Oval, three hours south of Perth.
"It'll be a good spectacle (on) Feb 8 and hopefully we're looking at a more festival atmosphere down there in the south west," Sutherland said.
"If we can get four or five thousand there to a Ford Ranger ... with marquees and that, then I think it will be really exciting for WA cricket to develop in the regional areas."