So what is the lowdown on preparing a world-class venue?
As it turns out, it's quite a complex beast to dissect on the petrie dish of laboratory experiments amid clandestine independent investigations akin to scenes out of Honey I've Shrunk The Kids, a Walt Disney sequel in the Szalinski family's backyard of the popular 1989 American flick.
It pays to comprehend there's an ethical code of reluctance to venture into an exclusive arena for fear of stepping on the toes of head groundsman Phil Stoyanoff, whose international prowess is well respected and documented.
However, some turf managers, including a retiree, are willing to shed some light on what constitutes ideal playing conditions and what contributes to it not just in cricket but also golf and rugby.
They hasten to add the nous and expertise required to sustain standards at McLean Park require mastery.
John Ruth, who worked for the Hastings District Council as groundsman for 30 years before retiring almost a year ago, has heard groundsmen may have gotten carried away with the sprinklers before the game on Thursday last week.
"After a long dry spell, that was a reasonable thing to do, although the amount of water that was put in is something to question about," says Ruth, whose portfolio included maintaining the cricketing venues at Cornwall Park, Anderson Park in Havelock North and Frimley Park.
It struck the 66-year-old from Hastings that only a few isolated spots at McLean Park had puddles, suggesting perhaps a malfunctioning sprinkler may have been the culprit on what felt like a carpet of a five-star hotel lobby the day before.
"I know Phil's an absolutely top groundsman ... so whether there was somebody else who manages the outfield I really don't know."
That Napier City Council invested a handsome sum of money to turn the outfield into a sand-based one also raises a few questions.
"It's a mystery. I feel for Phil because it's an odd one but that has to be explained, doesn't it?
"Phil's a world-class groundsman so it puzzles me especially with all the money spent on the ground so it needs to be talked about and the report made public," he says, suspecting Stoyanoff has been frustrated with heavy vehicles to the periphery of the park.
Having an outfield free of wobbles is imperative with rolling, fertilising, under sowing and top dressing.
"It has to be something predictable."
Ruth says the top soil at Frimley Park always used to be the sort of play dough required, although Cornwall Park wasn't that compliant.
"Frimley also has quite a steep gradient on it which helps with the drainage whereas Cornwall is very flat."
While he isn't privy to McLean Park's drainage specifications he has heard radio commentators talking about how the high tide at the nearby Marine Parade coastline has traditionally been held accountable for influencing the water table, especially when the tide is high.
According to Napier residents it stopped drizzling about 9am that Thursday and records show the high tide was 10.34am to 10.56am before receding to its lowest from 4.18pm to 4.51pm.
Ruth juxtaposes that with rugby in winter at the same venue but notes there are no water-logging issues but the question remains shouldn't the drainage system absorb anything dodgy sprinklers are capable of depositing?
Preparing top-class sporting venues is a never-ending labour of love.
While Frimley Park was in great nick, he recalls encountering issues with the pop-up sprinklers that left puddles around the cricket block.
"The problem was the surface compacting and not allowing the soil to breathe properly so the soil kind of turned into a jelly-like substance so we had to put some extra drainage around there."
Ruth says they used a fibre mould to aerate the soil.
One of the finest manicured fairways and greens in the Bay are found at the Hastings Golf Club where course superintendent Gordon Trembath does his magic.
While unaware of the maintenance regime at McLean Park, Trembath prefers to shed light on what makes the Bridge Pa underfoot ideal with its pumicey, ash soil types.
"In general it's a friable, you can call it volcanic soil," he says, which breaks easily and is receptive to moisture. "It doesn't drain right through [but] holds enough moisture to get good grass growth."
He considers the club lucky to have a natural occurrence in a wine-growing area, which isn't common at Napier Golf Club or even Cape Kidnappers, in what he suspects to be the driest summer in almost half a century.
The yardstick, Trembath reckons, is how the club seldom ever closes its course in winter due to slushy conditions.
"Other course, like Maraenui [Golf Club], do because their soil structures are quite different," he says, revealing only a stone's throw on either side of the Hastings course there are harsh gravel-like conditions.
The water table at Hastings club is 5m below grass level in winter on the upper plateau and 2m in other parts.
From its 1898 beginnings as a "nightmarish dust bowl", the course's transition to a Man-made Garden of Eden from 1912, after finding and abandoning different homes in the suburbs of Frimley, Mangateretere and Raureka.
The property at Bridge Pa, described in those days as a "howling wilderness of sand and pumice", was eventually bought and the gamble is paying off more than a century later with the advent of irrigation.
In cricket, a "no result" or draw is recorded if a 50-over match which has started but cannot be completed due to inclement weather or light interrupts play.
The ODI formats requires each team to bat 20 overs to constitute a match. The cut-off for Twenty20 cricket is five overs.
If each team is able to face at least this number of overs a result is possible and can be calculated using the much-maligned Duckworth-Lewis Method or other competition rules.
A match is abandoned if weather or other conditions prevent any play from occurring at all with umpires deeming it "abandoned without a ball being bowled" and that game is not officially included in records.
Since 2004, the International Cricket Council has decreed that a match where the toss takes place but which is abandoned without a ball bowled is either a draw or (for a limited-overs match) a no result. They are included in statistical records.
