The Memorial Ground (also known as Finchampstead Park) is a
cricket
Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...
ground in
Finchampstead
Finchampstead is a village and civil parish in the Wokingham Borough in the shire of Berkshire, England. Bordering northeastern Hampshire to the south, its northern extremity is south of Wokingham, west of Bracknell, south-east of Reading, ...
,
Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...
,
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. The ground is located at the northern end of the village and is part of a wider sporting complex.
History
Appearing on maps as early as 1930,
Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...
first played there against
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshir ...
in the 1982
Minor Counties Championship
The NCCA 3 Day Championship or National County Championship is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national counties (previously ca ...
.
List A cricket
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 num ...
was first played at the ground in the
1988 NatWest Trophy
The 1988 NatWest Trophy was the 8th NatWest Trophy. It was an English limited overs county cricket tournament which was held between 22 June and 3 September 1988. The tournament was won by Middlesex who defeated Worcestershire by 3 wickets in th ...
when Berkshire played
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...
,
with their
first-class opponents winning by 10 wickets. The ground was a venue for the
1993 Women's World Cup, hosting a single match between
England Women and
India Women, which England won by 3 runs. A second List A match was played there the following year in the
1994 NatWest Trophy
The 1994 NatWest Trophy was the 14th NatWest Trophy. It was an English limited overs county cricket tournament which was held between 21 June and 3 September 1994. The tournament was won by Worcestershire County Cricket Club who defeated Warwicks ...
with
Kent
Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...
as the visitors.
With the exception of 1985, one Minor Counties Championship match was played there annually from Berkshire's first match there,
with the ground also hosting its first
MCCA Knockout Trophy
The National Counties Cricket Association Knockout Cup was started in 1983 as a knockout one-day competition for the National Counties in English cricket. At first it was known as the ''English Industrial Estates Cup'', before being called the ...
match in 1997 when Berkshire played
Shropshire
Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...
.
Two further List A matches were later played there, with Berkshire losing to
Durham Durham most commonly refers to:
*Durham, England, a cathedral city in north east England
**County Durham, a ceremonial county which includes Durham
*Durham, North Carolina, a city in North Carolina, United States
Durham may also refer to:
Places
...
in the
2000 NatWest Trophy
The 2000 NatWest Trophy was the 20th and last NatWest Trophy before being renamed as the Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy for the 2001 season. It was an English limited overs county cricket tournament which was held between 2 May and 26 August 2 ...
and defeating
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
by 4 wickets.
Six further MCCA Knockout Trophy matches have been played there, the last of which came in 2006 between Berkshire and
Devon
Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...
,
while the arrangement of hosting one Minor Counties Championship match annually continues.
Finchampstead Cricket Club use the ground as their home venue. It also has
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
and
hockey
''Hockey'' is a family of List of stick sports, stick sports where two opposing teams use hockey sticks to propel a ball or disk into a goal. There are many types of hockey, and the individual sports vary in rules, numbers of players, apparel, ...
playing facilities, with
Hellenic League members
Finchampstead F.C. playing there.
Records
List A
* Highest team total: 384/6 (60 overs) by
Kent
Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...
v
Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...
, 1994
* Lowest team total: 97 all out (28.5 overs) by Berkshire v
Durham Durham most commonly refers to:
*Durham, England, a cathedral city in north east England
**County Durham, a ceremonial county which includes Durham
*Durham, North Carolina, a city in North Carolina, United States
Durham may also refer to:
Places
...
, 2000
* Highest individual innings: 136
* by
Carl Hooper
Carl Llewelyn Hooper (born 15 December 1966) is a Guyanese former cricketer who captained the West Indies in Test matches and One Day International matches. An all-rounder, he was a right-handed batsman and off-spin bowler, who came to promin ...
for Kent v Berkshire, 1994
* Best bowling in an innings: 5/87 by
Philip Oxley for Berkshire v Kent, 1994
See also
*
List of cricket grounds in England and Wales
This is a list of cricket grounds in England and Wales, listed in alphabetical order and based on each traditional English and Welsh county. The venues in this list have all been used for first-class matches. The venues have all staged first-cl ...
References
External links
Memorial Groundat
ESPNcricinfo
ESPNcricinfo (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 ...
Memorial Groundat CricketArchive
{{Berkshire CCC
Berkshire County Cricket Club
Cricket grounds in Berkshire