As people who know anything about prime real estate will tell you, it's all about "Location, location, location."
Not the pilot home improvement TV documentary of the same name that Michael Boulgaris made famous at the turn of the century but the homegrown Phil Stoyanoff variety at the heart of McLean
Park, Napier, that gets non-stop TV coverage over five days in a test match.
So what's the verdict from the architect of the 20m x 3m strip that West Indian or Black Caps players will either curse or worship on when the dust settles on Tuesday?
"It's pretty hard and has a good solid grass on it with even coverage. The grass is quite long but it's rolled into the surface which helps with the speed of the ball.
"It should have a good bounce and a good pace on it,"
Stoyanoff (right) told SportToday as his helpers tended to it.
"Wickets here have always been good for batsmen," he said as Ramnaresh Sarwan inspected it after a swag of his teammates had a gathering before going through fielding drills on the outfield.
So any tips for the batsmen, Stoyanoff?
The pitch master threw his head back and laughed: "I've never been a batsman."
His reputation exceeds him. This year the Indians used his expertise to prepare the one-day and test pitches in Bangalore which yielded many runs.
"The pitches there are totally different from here big time. They have massive cracks on their soil. The heat's a lot greater and it's a different type of clay altogether and [they have] different grasses. The pitches dry up much quicker there too."
The New Zealand Sport of Institute, based in Palmerston North, subcontracted him to the Indian cricket body, the BCCI.
"India's a great place," he said, before the professional within wished he could have extracted more bounce on the track.
"I've done a bit of research on that [after talking to players] and discovered the tracks on the southern part of India don't really bounce a lot.
"When you go to the north of India, in places like Mohali, the ball does bounce. I'd like to go back to Bangalore to have a little more play around with the clay."
