The County Ground, currently known as the Cooper Associates County Ground for some sponsorship reasons, is a cricket ground in Taunton, Somerset. It has been the home of Somerset County Cricket Club since 1882. The Ground, which is located between Priory Bridge Road and St James Street, has a capacity of around 12,500. The ground has hosted World Cup games both in 1983 and 1999. It will also be a venue for the 2019 World Cup. Since 1997, Women's international cricket has been played at the ground and in 2006 it became the home of the England Women's cricket team.
History:
Somerset played their first-class cricket match on the ground over 8-10 August 1882, beating Hampshire Cricket club comprehensively by five wickets. Later in the same month, the touring Australian team was drafted in to play a match with Somerset, becoming the first international team to visit the stadium. In 1989, the Somerset cricket museum was opened on the ground within the Old Priory Bam. The exhibits and displays in the museum primarily cover the cricket club's history including test match players such as Ian Botham and Marcus Trescothick. It also has a section devoted to the England Women's cricket team.
Ground:
Many describe this ground as an intimate and a lovely place to watch cricket from. The pitch is surrounded by a number of stands and pavilions. The members’ areas consist of the Colin Atkinson Pavilion, the Sir Ian Botham stand, the Marcus Trescothick stand. The non-members’ area covering the rest of the ground consists of the main scoreboard stand, the family stand, St James Street stand, old pavilion, and the Somerset stand. The ground is expected to support batsman more than bowlers.
Profile:
Set right within the town of Taunton itself, it is a ground that retains many characters despite extensive renovations and improvements. The main entrance gates are named after JC White, who plied his trade from 1909 to 1937. The record attendance was in 1948 when nearly 10,000 people gathered to see Don Bradman's Australians. It has seen many splendid innings, including two quadruple hundreds (a record shared with Melbourne and Karachi), Archie Maclaren's 424 being followed 93 years later by Graeme Hick's 405*. Viv Richards made a stunning 322 in a day for the County against Warwickshire in 1985. When conditions are well, bowlers can do well too. Tyler (1985), Trott (1900) and Rushby (1921) all took ten wickets here.
Records:
One-Day internationals: There has been a total of three One-day internationals played at this ground and all of them have been in the World Cup only. The highest team total is 373 for the loss of 6 wickets, scored by India against Sri Lanka in the 1999 World Cup. This game was marked by two of the finest innings by an Indian batsman in the 50-over format. Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid ended with scores of 183 and 145 runs. They together put up a partnership of 318 runs. David Gower joins them in the list of highest run-getters on this ground with 130 runs against Sri Lanka in 1983. The leading wicket takers are Robin Singh- 5 wickets, Vic Marks- 5 wickets and Neil Johnson- 4 wickets.
T20 Internationals: The County Ground, Taunton has hosted only a single T20 international till date and it came in the South Africa tour of England in 2017. The highest team total in this format is 178 for 8 scored by the Proteas in 20 overs. The highest run scorers in that match were Jason Roy- 67 runs, Jonny Bairstow- 47 runs and AB de Villiers- 46 runs. The leading wicket takers were Tom Curran- 3 wickets, Chris Morris- 2 wickets and Liam Plunkett- 2 wickets.
Fixtures:
Here is the list of fixtures for the ICC Cricket World Cup that is ought to be played at County Ground, Taunton:
Team 1 | Team 2 | Date | Time (IST) |
Afghanistan | New Zealand | 08 June 2019 | 18:00 |
Australia | Pakistan | 12 June 2019 | 15:00 |
Bangladesh | West Indies | 17 June 2019 | 15:00 |
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