Green, swing promoting and humid conditions sums up the construction of English pitches but everything depends on weather e.g. in summer it may behave like Indian pitches too. Early in the season, most batsmen have to be on their guard as English pitches prove to be most fickle, like the country's weather. Later in the summer, the pitches tend to get harder and lose their green. This makes the task easier for batsmen and only genuine fast bowlers like those bowling in range of (135–150 km/h) and spinners can contain. Spinners prove less effective in the first half of the season and tend to play their part only in the second half. The humid conditions and little dust makes the grounds ideal place to practice reverse swing with a 50-over old ball. Of all grounds, The Oval is the most dangerous as the ball reverse swings most there. Another reason for this is traditionally it hosts the last international test match of a touring side in a summer.
England is the hub for considerable research in the preparation of cricket pitches, and some outstanding research has recently been conducted by Cranfield University working with the ECB and The Institute of Groundsmanship (IOG).[6] The same has laid down fresh guidelines for preparation of pitches and is likely to improve the efficiency of a number of groundstaff.