Tunbridge Wells Cricket Week is a festival of

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 str ...

during which Kent County Cricket Club play their home matches at Tunbridge Wells Cricket Club's Nevill Ground in

Royal Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Rocks. ...

. Games held during it are considered some of Kent's most popular fixtures. Historically the event has usually been held in May or June but moved to July in 2015 for the 2015 and

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...

seasons. Following a reorganisation of the English domestic cricket season the week reverted to its more traditional place in the calendar for the 2017 season.

History

The cricket week has been running since 1902, with a single Kent match held the previous year at the Nevill Ground. It is currently one of Kent's two outgrounds with all other home matches being played at the St. Lawrence Ground in

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...

. The week has had a poem written about it.

Cricket

A traditional cricket week at The Nevill Ground usually comprised two

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 bec ...

games, with occasional limited overs games added to the programme from the 1960s onwards. With the advent of

Twenty20 Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single inn ...

cricket, the one day game was sometimes replaced with a Twenty20 game. In some years Kent have played an extra one day or T20 game during the week. For the 2017 season only a single four-day

game was scheduled for the festival. This was due to the reorganisation of the English domestic cricket season 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, ...

which led to

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 ...

having to choose which of their two out-grounds to allocate a single one-day fixture to. The county opted to allocate the one-day game to their ground at

Beckenham Beckenham () is a town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley, in Greater London. Until 1965 it was part of the historic county of Kent. It is located south-east of Charing Cross, situated north of Elmers End and E ...

on the south-eastern edge of London rather than to Tunbridge Wells.'Honorary Treasurer's Report' in ''Reports and Accounts (2016)'', Kent County Cricket Club, 2017, pp.11-14. Games during the Tunbridge Wells Festival week are often high-scoring with the pitch at the Nevill Ground sometimes being considered a "batting paradise". This could be seen during the 2010 County Championship game against

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The trad ...

, where 1,242 runs were scored despite the game being hit with rain.

References

{{Royal Tunbridge Wells Sport in Royal Tunbridge Wells Kent County Cricket Club 1902 establishments in England