Castle Park Cricket Ground is an English

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 st ...

ground in

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colc ...

. The ground is in Lower Castle Park, part of the land surrounding

Colchester Castle Colchester Castle is a Norman castle in Colchester, Essex, England, dating from the second half of the eleventh century. The keep of the castle is mostly intact and is the largest example of its kind anywhere in Europe, due to its being bui ...

and within the area of the

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked w ...

Grade II registered park and garden. It was used by

Essex County Cricket Club Essex County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Essex. Founded in 1876, the club had minor county status until 1894 wh ...

for some of their

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

matches between 1914 and 2016. When the ground is not used to stage

First-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

matches, it is frequently used for Colchester & East Essex Cricket Club.

History

The ground was opened in 1908 and the first match played here was on 18 June 1914 between Essex and Worcestershire in the

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It b ...

. The ground is bordered by the remains of a

Roman Wall Defensive walls are a feature of ancient Roman architecture. The Romans generally fortified cities, rather than building stand-alone fortresses, but there are some fortified camps, such as the Saxon Shore forts like Porchester Castle in Englan ...

. Due to the River Colne running alongside the ground, there used to be regular problems of drainage. In 1966, a match in progress was moved to Colchester's secondary venue, the

Garrison A Cricket Ground Garrison A Cricket Ground is a cricket ground in Colchester, Essex. The first recorded match on the ground was in 1924, when Essex played their first first-class match there against Gloucestershire. Essex played 25 first-class matches th ...

. Matches returned to the ground in 1974 when a

John Player League The NatWest Pro40 League was a one-day cricket league for first-class cricket counties in England and Wales. It was inaugurated in 1999, but was essentially the old Sunday League retitled to reflect large numbers of matches being played on days o ...

match was played and Essex played on the ground annually until 2016. Since 2017 matches at the ground have been "suspended" as a result of changes to the ways in which fixtures are arranged by the

England and Wales Cricket Board The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is the national governing body of cricket in England and Wales. It was formed on 1 January 1997 as a single governing body to combine the roles formerly fulfilled by the Test and County Cricket Board, ...

.Essex drop Colchester

CricInfo 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 ...

, 2016-11-26. Retrieved 2018-04-06.Jennings R (2017
Colchester Cricket Festival suspended again next season
''Daily Gazette'', 2017-11-29. Retrieved 2018-04-06. Irish pop vocal band

Westlife Westlife is an Irish pop vocal group formed in Dublin, Ireland in 1998. The group currently consists of members Shane Filan, Mark Feehily, Kian Egan, and Nicky Byrne. Brian McFadden was a member, until he left in 2004. The group temporari ...

were to perform at the ground on 11 July 2020 for their " Stadiums in the Summer Tour".

Notable Matches

During a county championship match between Essex and

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

at the ground in 1938, Arthur Fagg became the only batsman ever, to hit a

double century In cricket, a century is a score of 100 or more runs in a single innings by a batsman. The term is also included in "century partnership" which occurs when two batsmen add 100 runs to the team total when they are batting together. A century ...

in each innings, scoring 244 in his first and 202 not out in his second.

Ken McEwan Kenneth Scott McEwan (born 16 July 1952 at Bedford, South Africa), is a former cricketer who played principally for Eastern Province and Essex. A right-handed middle-order batsman, McEwan's cricket career coincided almost exactly with the perio ...

, always a prolific scorer, hit five hundreds in four consecutive visits to Castle Park between 1981 and 1984. He surpassed himself in 1983, scoring 181 against

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

and then, in the same week, 189 against Worcestershire, on both occasions securing a comfortable victory for Essex. In 1981, after Glamorgan had secured a first innings lead, a century each from

Graham Gooch Graham Alan Gooch, (born 23 July 1953) is a former English first-class cricketer who captained Essex and England. He was one of the most successful international batsmen of his generation, and through a career spanning from 1973 until 2000, ...

and

Brian Hardie Brian Ross Hardie (born 14 January 1950) is a professional cricket player who played for Essex County Cricket Club and Scotland between 1970 and 1990. Born in Stenhousemuir, Falkirk, Scotland, to Fettes-educated banker Col. James Millar Hardie ...

allowed Essex to declare their second innings at 411 for 9. Undeterred at being set 325 runs in as many minutes,

Javed Miandad Mohammad Javed Miandad PP SI (Urdu: ; born 12 June 1957), popularly known as Javed Miandad (Urdu: ), is a Pakistani cricket coach, commentator and former cricketer known for his unconventional style of captaincy and batting. ESPNcricinfo desc ...

scored 200 and it was only when he ran out of partners, some 14 runs short of the required total, that Essex and a nervous crowd of supporters could breathe freely again.

Ground records

* Highest Team Total - Essex, 662/7 declared, 1995 * Lowest Team Total - Essex, 44, 1986 * Highest Individual Total - A.E. Fagg 244, 1938 * Best Bowling Figures - T.P.B. Smith 9/77, 1947Seven Wickets in an Innings
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References

External links

{{Essex CCC Sports venues in Colchester Cricket grounds in Essex Essex County Cricket Club Sports venues completed in 1908 1908 establishments in England