Cricket fans heading to the Cheltenham Festival over the next couple of weeks could be in for a run feast.

So says Christian Brain, the man who should know better than anyone as he is in charge of preparing the wickets for this year’s Festival, which gets under way on Monday with the start of a four-day game between Gloucestershire and Sussex.

This is Brain’s fifth Festival and his fourth as head groundsman and when asked if he expected a glut of runs he said: “Hopefully so! We try to produce a good cricket wicket so if the batsmen do get in and see off the new ball then I’m sure the runs will flow.

“And the weather is going to stay nice so it should be quite decent for batting. So hopefully, yes, scores of 400 each in the first innings of the championship games and then a good result at the end of the four days is always what you try to aim for.”

Brain and his team have been working in Mediterranean-style conditions for the past few weeks and while that is great for sun-seekers and holidaymakers, it is not always what the men responsible for producing a cricket wicket want.

Yesterday's sudden downpour came as a bit of shock after all the glorious weather we have been having so has he been doing a rain dance over the past few days? 

“A little bit,” he chuckled. “We could have done with a few days of rain but that’s always a perfect world scenario and in a groundsman’s world the weather is never perfect – it’s always too cold, too wet, too hot or too dry so we just have to deal with whatever is thrown at us.

“In so far as the preparations for this year, this is probably the hottest and the driest spell that I have ever known in my time in groundsmanship.

“In the winter we had three bouts of really heavy snowfall, and then with the rain not really letting up until well into April, it’s been an amazing turnaround from the beginning of June where we just seem to have gone into a really hot dry spell and it doesn’t seem, from the forecast, to be ending any time soon so it’s another challenge you just have to deal with the best you can.”

So how does Brain expect the wickets to play?

“I’m hoping, I’m quietly confident, that they will play pretty well,” he said. “I always try to produce a good cricket wicket and what I mean by that is that it’s a wicket that gives everybody something.

“It’s not just flat where it becomes a complete run-fest, it’s not a seamer friendly track where everyone gets shot out for low scores, and we don’t want it to just turn into a raging, spinning pitch so what I try to produce is something there for everybody.

“If the batsmen can get in and play well there are runs to be had and on quite a small ground and quick outfield they can get in and score big scores.

“So if the bowlers bowl well and put the ball in the right area – especially with a new ball, it does move around a little bit and swing, it does generally swing here quite a bit – then they’ll get the rewards and get the wickets.

“So that’s what I try to produce and that’s what I’m hoping for, but again, ask me after the first session of play on the first day! You can always look at it and try to read what it might do but until they play on it, you can’t really tell.

“If the ball gets older and the wicket gets a bit flatter, with the sun out the batsman should obviously score the runs. And then hopefully in the later part of the four-day games the spinners might come into it and hopefully get a bit of turn, that’s what you try to achieve.”

And if the batsman do start getting on top the runs are sure to come at a fair rate on what has always been a quick-scoring ground at Cheltenham College.

“Obviously we do have a little bit of a slope here,” added Brain. “Again, with the heat we’ve had, it’s been hard work trying to keep it green and we’ve been pretty much watering non-stop.

“With the type of weather and as the ground is hard, the ball should fly across the outfield quite quickly, it’s usually a high scoring ground and it’s quite small as well and with the slope the ball should run away quite quickly if they hit the gaps in the field.”

So does Brain, who has been working at the College for the past five years, get to see much of the cricket once play starts?

“Yes and no,” he said. “It does depend on what else we have going on at the College at the time. We have the King’s Summer Camp in and they use the Prep school fields so we have to keep an eye on that.

“We’re renovating most of our cricket squares now but again we’ll be putting more water on them, especially in these periods to try to get the grass growing because we have to keep one eye on the rugby, which we will then set up for through August once the Festival is over.

“So there are always little bits and pieces going on but I generally try to catch most of the play. Usually I go and hide somewhere for the first couple of hours of each game before it all settles down.”

And when he’s in ‘hiding’, who is he looking forward to seeing play?

“Jofra Archer is meant to be a good up and coming bowler, he’s played a bit of the Big Bash in Australia last year so he should hopefully be here with Sussex,” said Brain.

“Whether Chris Jordan will be here with his England commitments I’m not sure but there are a couple there.

“Durham have Paul Collingwood, a former England batsman, so hopefully he’ll be here and it will be good to see him. But we’re just looking forward to seeing some decent cricket and hopefully some Gloucestershire victories.”

Supporters of the county will echo that of course and this year will see the women’s team, Western Storm, play a T20 game against Surrey Stars on 26th July, the penultimate day of the Festival.

That’s something new for the Festival, an event that has been running since the back end of the 19th century.

It’s evolved over the years of course and Brain said: “We’ve had some good years in my time here, especially when we had the England Lions a few years ago.

“That was good fun and something different, hopefully we can attract some more games like that coming up. This is the 146th year I believe at the Festival, so with 150 years around the corner, hopefully the Festival will continue to go from strength to strength.”

In addition to the four-day game against Sussex, Gloucestershire have two T20 games at the College – against Essex on Friday 20th July and Glamorgan a week later – and a second four-day game against Durham which starts on Sunday 22nd July.