Best Artificial Grass for a Backyard Cricket Pitch or Net

What a backyard strip has to do

Backyard cricket has never cared much about regulation. A wheelie bin for stumps, one hand one bounce, over the fence and you're fetching it yourself. The surface still decides whether the game is any good, though. A dirt patch turns to dust by January, and real lawn wears through to bare ground in exactly the two places it gets used hardest: where the bowler lands and where the batter's back foot drags.

Synthetic turf solves the wear problem outright, and it plays the same way every delivery, which is the thing that lets a kid learn to bat. What it won't do is reproduce a match-grade wicket, and being clear about that gap up front stops people buying the wrong product.

The dimensions worth knowing

Under the MCC Laws, a full pitch is 20.12m from stump to stump and 3.05m wide. Cricket Australia's junior formats shorten the playing length, using 16m for the youngest age groups and 18m for the stage above. Outdoor practice nets in Australia are generally built around 20m long and 3.6m wide with about 3m of height, although there is no Australian Standard that locks those net numbers in.

Our turf ships in fixed cut lengths at a fixed 3.71m roll width. That width is the quiet win here, because 3.05m of pitch and 3.6m of net bay both sit comfortably inside a single roll. You get a seamless strip down its whole length with no join running through the middle of the playing surface, which is the join you'd least want.

What you're building	Playing length	Length to order
Junior strip (youngest formats)	16m	20m roll, trimmed on site
Junior strip (next stage up)	18m	20m roll, trimmed on site
Full-length backyard strip	20.12m	20m roll
Short net or hitting lane	10-15m	10m or 15m length
Bowling machine or throwdown lane	5-10m	5m or 10m length

One honest footnote on the full-length option: a 20m roll lands about 120mm short of true stump-to-stump distance. Nobody in a backyard is running a tape over it. If you want the strip to run past the creases at both ends the way a club surface does, plan on joining a second piece rather than expecting one roll to cover it.

Why cricket-specific turf is so short

Purpose-made synthetic cricket surfaces sit around 8mm to 12.5mm of pile, are often dressed with sand, and get laid over a concrete or asphalt slab. Short dense fibre on a rigid base is what produces pace and true bounce. Every extra millimetre of pile absorbs a bit more of the ball's energy, so it sits up, comes on slower and grips differently for a spinner.

Landscape turf starts at about 20mm, roughly double a club net surface. A strip built from lawn turf will therefore play slower and lower than a proper wicket, and there's no way to spec around that. For family cricket it's a fair trade, because the same strip has to look like a lawn for the other eleven months of the year. For a teenager doing serious volume with a hard ball, dedicated cricket turf on a slab is the right purchase and no landscape product will match it.

Which pile height for the strip

Shorter is better for the playing surface, and that runs against the usual advice about picking turf for a backyard. Our pile height guide covers the general trade-offs. Here's how they land specifically for cricket.

Tier	Pile	How it plays	Best use in a cricket yard
TURF-STARTER-20	20mm	Firmest and truest of the three, least energy lost into the pile, keeps its shape under repeated foot traffic	The strip itself, and net floors
TURF-CLASSIC-30	30mm	Noticeably softer underfoot, ball dies into it, reads convincingly as lawn	Outfield around the strip, general backyard
TURF-PRO-40	40mm	Lushest look and softest landing, slowest surface of the three	Surrounds and lounging areas, poor choice for the strip

The practical build for most yards is a 20mm strip down the middle with taller turf either side. You get a playing surface with some pace, an outfield that still looks like a garden from the kitchen window, and a change in texture underfoot that marks the pitch out without any painted lines.

Density matters as much as pile height and gets talked about less. A sparse 20mm product will flatten in the bowler's landing zone within a season or two, so check the weight per square metre before assuming short means durable.

The base does most of the work

Bounce comes from what's under the turf far more than from the turf itself. Lay a 20mm product over soft soil and you've built a dead pitch that no amount of product selection can rescue.

For a strip, compact the base harder than you would for a lawn: 50-75mm of road base or crusher dust, screeded flat, then plate compacted in layers rather than all at once. Check level with a string line down the full length, because a rise or dip of 10-15mm in the middle of a 20m strip is enough to make bounce unpredictable, which is the one fault that will annoy everyone who uses it. Our installation guide covers base prep, membrane and fixing in detail.

A concrete slab underneath gets you closer to real pace, and it's what clubs and schools use. In a residential backyard it's usually overkill, and it permanently commits that part of the yard to being a cricket pitch. Compacted road base is the sensible middle ground.

Skip any foam or shockpad underlay under the strip. It's excellent under a play area and wrong here, because it soaks up precisely the energy you're trying to keep in the ball.

Nets, run-ups and the hard ball question

If you're building a net bay, the floor wants the same short pile and firm base as the strip, extended past the batting end so the bowler's run-up and delivery stride are on the same surface. Turf laid short of the crease creates a lip at the edge where the bowler is planting their front foot at speed, and that lip is a genuine ankle risk.

A hard ball fired repeatedly into synthetic turf will wear a patch on a good length, the same as it does on grass. The wear shows as flattened and eventually shredded fibre rather than a bare hole, concentrated in a band a few metres in front of the batter. Rotate which end you bowl from where the yard allows, and expect that band to look tired before the rest of the strip does.

Netting, poles and any surrounding structure are your side of the job, since we supply turf only. Check your fence lines and neighbour sight lines before committing to where the strip goes, remembering that a ball travels further off synthetic than off winter grass.

Heat, and playing barefoot in January

Backyard cricket peaks in the exact conditions that make synthetic turf hottest. All artificial turf gets hot in direct summer sun, and a cricket strip is usually the least shaded part of the yard by design. Barefoot kids on a 40 degree afternoon will notice.

Shoes solve it, and cricket is generally played in them anyway. Where the same lawn doubles as a play area, a hose-down before use drops surface temperature for a while, and shade over part of the run helps more. Our guide on whether artificial grass can burn bare feet covers what does and doesn't reduce it.

What it costs

Use the broader Australian market as your budgeting guide. Budget turf at 15-25mm pile generally runs about $15-30/m² supply only including GST, mid-range 25-35mm about $30-45/m², and premium 35-45mm about $40-60/m². Professional installation typically adds another $30-70/m² on top, and DIY base materials run roughly $10-20/m².

A full-length strip at one roll width is about 74m² of turf, so the tier you choose moves the total meaningfully. Since the strip wants the shortest pile anyway, cricket is a rare case where the cheapest tier is also the technically correct one. For our current numbers, see the pricing on the product page, where the calculator works out lengths and quantities for the area you enter.

We deliver across Australia with one exception: we don't currently ship to Western Australia.

Frequently asked questions

Can you play cricket on normal artificial lawn turf?

Yes, and plenty of Australian backyards do. Landscape turf at 20mm pile plays slower and lower than a purpose-made cricket surface, because the longer fibre absorbs energy that a 9mm cricket product would return to the ball. For family games and junior practice that's perfectly playable. For serious hard-ball training, dedicated cricket turf over a slab is the right product.

How long does a backyard cricket strip need to be?

A full pitch is 20.12m stump to stump, but very few backyards have that. Cricket Australia's junior formats use 16m for the youngest age groups and 18m for the next stage, and either is a realistic target for a suburban block. If your yard is shorter again, a 10m or 15m strip still works well for throwdowns, catching practice and family games.

Do you need a concrete slab under a synthetic cricket pitch?

Clubs and schools use slabs because they produce the pace and consistent bounce that competitive cricket needs. For a backyard, a properly compacted road base at 50-75mm gets you most of the way there without the cost or the permanence. The mistake to avoid is laying turf straight onto soft soil or an unlevel surface, which produces unpredictable bounce no product can fix.

Will the turf wear out where the bowler lands?

It will show wear there first, the same way grass does. Repeated impact on a good length flattens and eventually frays the fibre in a band a few metres in front of the batter. A denser, shorter product resists this better than a sparse one, and alternating which end you bowl from spreads the load. Brushing the pile back up against the lay direction every few weeks keeps that zone looking better for longer.