WHO would have thought in this hi-tech age and in the same week that Kent fitted Wi-Fi wireless computer technology at St Lawrence, that club groundsman Mike Grantham would be using wood working glue to improve his pitches.

The county's curator tried the "gluing" technique on Sunday for the Spitfires' C&G Trophy pitch and, after hitting a career best 158, the surface undoubtedly met with the approval of England and Somerset batsman Marcus Trescothick.

Developed in New Zealand and trail-blazed in England last summer by Lancashire's groundsman Peter Marron, the method involves spraying the entire surface of the wicket with a mix of polyvinyl acetate - that's PVA to you and me - and five litres of water.

Marron, whose square in Manchester is laid on unusually dark soil, has used the method to hold together the "plates" on his Old Trafford pitches - at times wickets there resemble crazy paving - but, as Grantham explained, Kent tried the technique for entirely different reasons.

He said: "What with the warmer weather and the lack of rain, we've had a problem here for the last couple of years with algae growing over the surface of the Canterbury square.

"For some reason that's meant that the white ball has nibbled around off the surface of our one-day wickets.

"We've spoken to Chris Woods, the ECB's pitches advisor about it, and although it is experimental we thought we'd give it a go because we can't seem to get rid of this algae by chemical spraying."

ECB rules dictate that the surface is sprayed 48 hours before the game and groundsmen must notify Lord's of their intentions to use a glued pitch.

Grantham added: "The ball hardly deviated throughout the Somerset innings so in those terms it seems to have been successful.

"The glue is bio-degradable and will break down in the short term, but we don't know yet what the long term effects will be on these pitches.

"But from my point of view, if it produces more runs and entertaining cricket, then it will have worked."