Kensington Oval

Ground information

Location

Bridgetown, St. Michael, Barbados

Establishment

1871

Capacity

11,000

Operator

Kensington Oval Management Inc. (KOMI)

Tenants

Barbados Cricket Association (BCA)
Barbados Tridents

End names

Malcolm Marshall End
Joel Garner End

International information

First Test

11–16 January 1930:

West Indies v

England

Last Test

1–3 March 2015:

West Indies v

England

First ODI

23 April 1985:

West Indies v

New Zealand

Last ODI

26 June 2016:

West Indies v

Australia

First T20I

20 June 2008:

West Indies v

Australia

Last T20I

13 March 2014:

West Indies v

England

Team information

Pickwick Cricket Club	(1882–2004)
Barbados Cricket Association (BCA)	(2004–present)
Barbados Tridents	(2013–present)

As of 30 June 2016
Source: ESPNcricinfo

The Kensington Oval is a stadium located to the west of the capital city Bridgetown on the island of Barbados. It is the pre-eminent sporting facility on the island and is primarily used for cricket. Locally referred to as "The Mecca" of cricket, it has hosted many important and exciting cricket games between local, regional, and international teams during its more than 120-year history.

Cricket at the Oval began in 1882 when the Pickwick Cricket Club assumed formal ownership of the ground. The first international match held was in 1895 when Slade Lucas' side visited the island. The first Test match was held in January 1930, when the West Indies and England played to a draw. Since the genesis there have been a total of 43 Test matches played on the Kensington Oval grounds, 21 of those matches won by the West Indian cricket team. The new stadium has been commemorated through two 2007 Barbadian postage stamps.

The stands of the Kensington Oval were extensively rebuilt for the 2007 Cricket World Cup in a BDS$90M (US$45 Million) redevelopment. Demolition of the old stadium began on schedule in June, 2005 after completion of the first Test against Pakistan. The names of the former stands which made up the Kensington stadium were the George Challenor stand, the Hall and Griffith, the Kensington, the Mitchie Hewitt, the Pickwick, and the Three Ws stand plus the Peter Short Media Centre. Most of these names have been retained.

In 2004, the STRI construction team were chosen to redevelop the Kensington Oval outfield, after they were previously involved with the Lord's Cricket Ground outfield reconstruction. The topsoil on the grounds previous outfield was a sandy clay loam, which struggled to cope with Bridgetown's occasional heavy rainfall, with climate data indicating that a storm lasting up to an hour could dump about 50mm of rain once every five years. The topsoil was a complete mixture of soils and significantly varied in depth, lying over ancient coral reef limestone.

...
Wikipedia