The Great Barrier Reef Arena (also known as the Ray Mitchell Oval and Harrup Park) is an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

and

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

ground in the city of

Mackay Mackay may refer to: *Clan Mackay, the Scottish clan from which the surname "MacKay" derives Mackay may also refer to: Places Australia * Mackay Region, a local government area ** Mackay, Queensland, a city in the above region *** Mackay Airpor ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Australian rules football

On 19 September 2018, the

Gold Coast Suns The Gold Coast Suns is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club is based on Queensland's Gold Coast in the suburb of Carrara. The club has been playing in the AFL since th ...

announced a four-year deal with the

Mackay Council Mackay may refer to: *Clan Mackay, the Scottish clan from which the surname "MacKay" derives Mackay may also refer to: Places Australia * Mackay Region, a local government area ** Mackay, Queensland, a city in the above region *** Mackay Airpor ...

to play

AFL Women's AFL Women's (AFLW) is Australia's national semi-professional Australian rules football league for female players. The first season of the league in February and March 2017 had eight teams; the league expanded to 10 teams in the 2019 season, 1 ...

matches at Harrup Park between 2019-2022.

Domestic cricket matches

The first recorded match on the ground occurred when Queensland Country XI played against the touring

West Indians A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). For more than 100 years the words ''West Indian'' specifically described natives of the West Indies, but by 1661 Europeans had begun to use it ...

in 1968, with

Rohan Kanhai Rohan Babulal Kanhai (born 26 December 1935) is a Guyanese former cricketer of Tamil Indo-Guyanese origin , who represented the West Indies in 79 Test matches. He is widely considered to be one of the best batsmen of the 1960s. Kanhai featur ...

scoring 206 runs on the 2nd day. In 1978, the ground staged a single

World Series Cricket World Series Cricket (WSC) was a commercial professional cricket competition staged between 1977 and 1979 which was organised by Kerry Packer and his Australian television network, Nine Network. WSC ran in commercial competition to establishe ...

"Country Cavaliers" match. The ground held its first two

List A List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

one day matches in 1988, when

played the touring

Pakistanis Pakistanis ( ur, , translit=Pākistānī Qaum, ) are the citizens and nationals of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. According to the 2017 Pakistani national census, the population of Pakistan stood at over 213 million people, making it the w ...

on 3 and 4 December 1988. The first first-class match to be played there came in 1995 when Queensland played against the touring Sri Lankans, with the match ending in a 273 run victory for Queensland, with

Michael Kasprowicz Michael Scott Kasprowicz (born 10 February 1972) is a former Australian international cricketer, who played all formats of the game. He is a right arm fast bowler. He represented Queensland and played in the English county scene at first clas ...

taking match figures of 12/95. The second first-class game, and first

Sheffield Shield The Sheffield Shield (currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Marsh Sheffield Shield) is the domestic first-class cricket competition of Australia. The tournament is contested between teams from the six states of Australia. Sheffield Shi ...

game came in 2015 when

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

defeated Queensland in a close contest by 3 wickets. Queensland opener

Matt Renshaw Matthew Thomas Renshaw (born 28 March 1996) is an Australian international cricketer. He played eleven Tests for Australia between 2016 and 2018 as an opening batsman, and was recalled to the Test team in 2023. In domestic first-class cricket ...

top scored with 170, and New South Wales spinner Will Somerville collected 7 wickets. A List A match was played there in October 2011 between Queensland and

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

in the 2011/12

Ryobi One Day Cup The One-Day Cup, known as the Marsh One-Day Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an Australian domestic List A 50-over limited-overs cricket tournament. It has had many different names, formats and teams since the inaugural 1969-1970 season. Init ...

. The ground was then host to a 2016 Quadrangular series between Australia A, India A, South Africa A and Australia's National Performance Squad, being won by India A.

Brisbane Heat The Brisbane Heat are an Australian men's professional Twenty20 franchise cricket team that competes in the Big Bash League. The Heat wears a teal uniform and are based in Brisbane in the Australian state Queensland. Their home ground is the Br ...

from the Women's Big Bash Cricket League played six home games at Mackay in 2018 and 2019. Great Barrier Reef Arena hosted nine WBBL games from 13 November 2021 to 20 November 2021, with six teams competing in two consecutive "festival rounds".

International cricket matches

The ground hosted a

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

match during the

1992 Cricket World Cup The 1992 Cricket World Cup (officially the Benson & Hedges World Cup 1992) was the fifth staging of the Cricket World Cup, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was held in Australia and New Zealand from 22 February to 25 Mar ...

, with

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

playing on 28 February. The match was abandoned after two deliveries due to torrential rain, despite the best efforts of the groundstaff to dry the outfield. Thus, Sri Lankan fast bowler

Champaka Ramanayake Champaka Priyadarshana Hewage Ramanayake (born January 8, 1965, in Galle), or Champaka Ramanayake, is a former Sri Lankan cricketer who played in 18 Tests and 62 ODIs from 1986 to 1995. Champaka is a highly experienced and respected intern ...

and Indian batsman

Krishnamachari Srikkanth Krishnamachari Srikkanth (born 21 December 1959), also known as Cheeka, is a former captain of the Indian cricket team and former chairman of the selection committee. He played a crucial part in India's team batting line up as opener espec ...

hold unusual distinctions: Ramanayake is the only male international bowler to have ever bowled at the venue, and Srikkanth is the batsman who scored the only run ever in the only men's international cricket match played here. This match was also the debut match of

Ajay Jadeja Ajaysinhji Jadeja ( born 1 February 1971), known as Ajay Jadeja, is an Indian former professional cricketer, who was a regular member of the Indian cricket team between 1992 and 2000. He played 15 Test matches and 196 One Day Internationals f ...

. In 2021, the venue was selected to host three

Women's One Day International Women's One Day International (WODI) is the limited overs form of women's cricket. Matches are scheduled for 50 overs, equivalent to the men's game. The first women's ODIs were played in 1973, as part of the first Women's World Cup which was ...

matches between

and

, the first of which was played on 21 September 2021.

References

External links

Ray Mitchell Oval
at

ESPNcricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a ...

Ray Mitchell Oval
at CricketArchive {{NEAFL Cricket grounds in Australia 1992 Cricket World Cup stadiums Sports venues in Queensland World Series Cricket venues North East Australian Football League grounds