First Class Standard Grounds in Australia

[western royboy]

Looking at some other footy/cricket grounds in Tassie.

Aurora now has a drop in pitch so could host some games. It would need practise facilities though. It has everything else one would want though. My old favorite the North Hobart Oval use to host club cricket but even if they reinstated the pitch, its too small on the square boundaries.The neighbours would have fun if they played T20 matches on it!

Burnie has hosted ODD games & Devonport also has hosted 1st class cricket in the past. Both would need a revamp to get up to modern standards.

Interestingly, I went out to KGV Oval in Glenorchy last week to check out the new development currently being built. I would think that the ground has the potential to be used for higher than just A grade cricket. It wouldnt be much smaller than the MCG. It has decent new cricket pracise facilities, 2 modern football/cricket change rooms, two grandstands, one is quite new & has a 90 seat viewing facility on top of it. KGV is currently getting a $7million football & multiuse club rooms. It will be a 3 story building. It'll have two more change rooms, a cafe, a sizeable ground floor bar, 2nd floor 250 seat function centre with all the modern catering facilities. Offices & other facilities atop the building. It'll also have a Physiotherapy centre with gym & hydrotherapy pool on the ground floor. It will look impressive when finished later this year. Given some work on the grade standard wickets, it looks like it could easily host 1st class cricket. I wish they could have done this sort of this at North Hobart, but the council just didnt care enough about sport.

Kingston is a new & very good club sports facility, but has poor access & parking, & virtually no facilities or protection for a crowd of any size. It has great potential though.

So I think at a pinch we could host something like the national ODD series. Southern states have many cricket/football grounds that have the sort of facilities that could handle such a series.

So Tassie has BRO, Aurora, KGV, Kingston, Devonport & Burnie that could handle 1st class cricket without much trouble IMO.

Do these have turf wicket practice facilities that are totally off the main oval? I'm guessing no and that is what rules out every other ground before we get to the other facilities.

 

[madmug]

Do these have turf wicket practice facilities that are totally off the main oval? I'm guessing no and that is what rules out every other ground before we get to the other facilities.

Good question, I cant absolutely say for sure at Burnie & Devonport. I think they do both have off ground practise areas. Aurora has Mowbray cricket club next door at Invermay park (Pontings old home club!) so they would be ok with some work. Kingston has practise off at on end, as too does KGV, KGV also has some older practise wickets right off the ground. So I think they'd all be ok from that perspective, Maybe Kingston has a problem, but Its a twin oval. The footy ground being next to it on the other side of the central facility. I think they have enough room to build some extras if they needed to.

 

[Slax]

In country Victoria the following grounds could easily be brought up to FC standard.

Bendigo - City Oval
Ballarat - Eastern Oval (has hosted International cricket previously)

No doubt grounds could also be found in Geelong and La Trobe Valley.

 

[Bumpswithagrin]

In country Victoria the following grounds could easily be brought up to FC standard.

Bendigo - City Oval
Ballarat - Eastern Oval (has hosted International cricket previously)

No doubt grounds could also be found in Geelong and La Trobe Valley.

I very much doubt they could easily be brought up to FC standard otherwise they would have been already. Just because a ground has been used previously for international cricket doesn't mean it is close to first class standard. As has been stated ad nauseum the criteria for first class standard has changed in recent years.

Bye the way, I've never heard of City Oval in Bendigo!

 

[bombersfan4000]

Does anyone know the exact criteria?

And why exactly the Junction Oval (or other major grounds in country Victoria like Eureka Stadium) fail?

i dont understand why Victoria doesn't have any other grounds classed as first class. there are several of the old AFL club traditional home grounds, Victoria Park, Windy Hill that all host cricket games as well as VFL games,

 

[bombersfan4000]

In country Victoria the following grounds could easily be brought up to FC standard.

Bendigo - City Oval
Ballarat - Eastern Oval (has hosted International cricket previously)

No doubt grounds could also be found in Geelong and La Trobe Valley.

Kardinia park, or whatever it is called nowadays, could hose cricket games, but, the shape of the ground. the wings are very Narrow. only 110 meters across the ground width ways. smaller than North Sydney Oval

 

[Slax]

Kardinia park, or whatever it is called nowadays, could hose cricket games, but, the shape of the ground. the wings are very Narrow. only 110 meters across the ground width ways. smaller than North Sydney Oval

Doesn't stop NZ cricket using Eden Gardens.

What were the demission of the Adelaide Oval originally?

 

[bombersfan4000]

Doesn't stop NZ cricket using Eden Gardens.

What were the demission of the Adelaide Oval originally?

not sure but i do remember the very short boundaries to the sides & the enormously long boundries down straight

 

[Slax]

not sure but i do remember the very short boundaries to the sides & the enormously long boundries down straight

Which makes it identical to Kardinia Park as it has a N-S alignment with a similar width.

 

[bombersfan4000]

Which makes it identical to Kardinia Park as it has a N-S alignment with a similar width.

true, but now days you have to include the boundary rope. im not sure what the actual measurements need to be but with the total width of 110 meters wide, the square of the wicket boundaries could be potentially 45 to 50 meters each side max or under. id love to see a cricket game played at Kardinia park as the stadium is highly utilized, but it would be pretty doubtful

 

[Bumpswithagrin]

The grounds dimensions are but one aspect of it. Does Kardinia Park have off field turf practice nets?

I direct you to this post from western royboy from page 1 of this thread. It seems many grounds do not fulfill this requirement.

1. On Field surface
2. Practice Facilities - off field turf
3. Off Field Amenities

Junction fails 2 & 3, not sure if Eureka has wickets in it but it fails on 2. Eastern Oval Ballarat once upgraded may be an option but not at the minute.

 

[Slax]

true, but now days you have to include the boundary rope. im not sure what the actual measurements need to be but with the total width of 110 meters wide, the square of the wicket boundaries could be potentially 45 to 50 meters each side max or under. id love to see a cricket game played at Kardinia park as the stadium is highly utilized, but it would be pretty doubtful

Whilst the square boundaries might be short, still think that the ground can cater for one or two shield games a season. As I said elsewhere I believe that every state should be required to play at least one FC match a season in a regional centre, NSW is the only state to do this, hence it is also no surprise at the level of FC cricketers NSW produces is double any other state in the country. Connect with the grass roots and you will reap the rewards.

 

[Hellgood]

Not really sure where to put this other than here, but nice to see international cricket of sorts come to the South West with the U19 series between England and Australia in Bunbury. Facilities at the Grammar School are very good for cricket, interesting that they didn't use Hands Oval which is where state matches have been held in the past.

 

[Van_Dyke]

The_Reaper you can add Harrup Park, Mackay to the list, as it will host QLD vs NSW in the last shield game before BBL.

 

[The_Reaper]

The_Reaper you can add Harrup Park, Mackay to the list, as it will host QLD vs NSW in the last shield game before BBL.

******* Mackay has a first class standard ground and Victoria only has the MCG

 

[Bingle_21]

******* Mackay has a first class standard ground and Victoria only has the MCG

Does anyone know why Skilled Stadium isn't First Class approved? I assumed maybe the external practice wicket thing but I went past it on the train the other day and noticed there is actually external practice wickets.

 

[western royboy]

Does anyone know why Skilled Stadium isn't First Class approved? I assumed maybe the external practice wicket thing but I went past it on the train the other day and noticed there is actually external practice wickets.

Well yes I do know why - presently there is no turf wicket there - so that's sort of an essential thing - Kardinia Park No.1 has excellent off field turf tracks adjacent to it - which would certainly suffice but at the moment there is no need / plan / request to put pitches into Skilled Stadium - there was a drop in put in for the Big Bash in the Vic days but from memory it was pretty ordinary. CV should have based the Renegades out of there IMO

 

[The_Reaper]

I reckon we need to move some ODIs to places like Geelong/Newcastle/Canberra/Gold Coast etc

Maybe one ODI a year in a city like that

 

[Bingle_21]

Well yes I do know why - presently there is no turf wicket there - so that's sort of an essential thing - Kardinia Park No.1 has excellent off field turf tracks adjacent to it - which would certainly suffice but at the moment there is no need / plan / request to put pitches into Skilled Stadium - there was a drop in put in for the Big Bash in the Vic days but from memory it was pretty ordinary. CV should have based the Renegades out of there IMO

Yep. That would definitely do it. I just assumed (clearly wrongly) that the Geelong team played out of Skilled.

 

[The_Reaper]

Yep. That would definitely do it. I just assumed (clearly wrongly) that the Geelong team played out of Skilled.

It's grade cricket.

Pointless to play in a stadium that big

 

[Bumpswithagrin]

******* Mackay has a first class standard ground and Victoria only has the MCG

And Perth only has the WACA... mind boggling.

 

[Phone]

Not really.

 

[ioppolo]

I reckon we need to move some ODIs to places like Geelong/Newcastle/Canberra/Gold Coast etc

Maybe one ODI a year in a city like that

Manuka already gets an ODI a summer. Didn't Mackay host a match in the '87 world cup?

 

[western royboy]

Manuka already gets an ODI a summer. Didn't Mackay host a match in the '87 world cup?

Hosted in the'90 WC but do did Mildura & Ballarat and Berri from memory - current standards did not apply

 

[Hamez]