Warwickshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 member clubs of the EnglishCounty Championship, representing thehistoric county ofWarwickshire. The club was established on 8 April 1882 and has playedfirst-class cricket since 1894,[1]List A cricket since 1963,[2] andTwenty20 cricket since 2003.[3][A] Unlike most professional sports, in which a team usually has a single fixed home ground, county cricket clubs have traditionally used different grounds in various towns and cities within the county for home matches, although the use of minor "out grounds" has diminished since the 1980s.[4][5] Warwickshire have played first class, List A, or Twenty20 matches at eleven different grounds. Six of these grounds are or were located in the cities ofBirmingham andCoventry, which no longer lie within the administrative county of Warwickshire due to changes in the county boundaries in England in 1974.[6]
The county's debut home match in first-class cricket was played atEdgbaston Cricket Ground in Birmingham againstKent in 1894.[7] At this time the ground stood on land owned by theGough-Calthorpe family, who had developed the manor ofEdgbaston into an exclusive Birmingham suburb during the 19th century, and believed that a cricket ground would enhance the image of the district. Warwickshire had previously considered locating their headquarters inRugby orLeamington Spa, but secretary William Ansell considered Birmingham more suitable due to its large population and railway connections.[8] Edgbaston has remained the club's primary ground, hosting the majority of the club's matches, and also played host to the club's first home fixtures in the other formats of the game; in List A cricket in 1964 againstHampshire; and in Twenty20 cricket againstGlamorgan in 2003. Since 1902 the ground has also hosted matches played by theEngland cricket team.[7]
Warwickshire played all their matches at Edgbaston until 1903, when they played at theBulls Head Ground in Coventry, which was used once a year until 1919, other than during theFirst World War. Over 70 years later, the club returned to the ground for three matches in the early 1990s.[9] Prior to the First World War the club also played first-class matches atArlington Avenue in Leamington Spa andWeddington Road inNuneaton. In the interwar years, the county began to play matches atThe Butts Ground andMorris Motors Ground in Coventry, theGriff and Coton Ground in Nuneaton and theMitchells and Butlers' Ground in Birmingham. Of these grounds, only the latter two continued to be used after theSecond World War. In 1946 the county began to use theCourtaulds Ground in Coventry and continued to play there until the 1980s.
The only ground other than Edgbaston used by Warwickshire for first-class cricket in the 21st century isSwans Nest Lane inStratford-upon-Avon. Having only previously played a single match there in 1951, Warwickshire returned to the ground to play one first-class match in each of 2004 and 2005 as well as a single List A match in the latter year. Additionally, the county played a Twenty20 match atRugby School in 2013 and planned to make this an annual occurrence, although the match scheduled for 2014 was abandoned without any play taking place due to bad weather.[10] The team did, however, play one List A match at the school in 2015, and have scheduled three matches at the school in the2024 One-Day Cup.[11] Some of the grounds formerly used by the county still play host to matches at lower levels of the sport, such as those in Leamington Spa and Stratford-upon-Avon, which are used regularly by club teams playing in theBirmingham and District Premier League. Others, however, are disused, such as the Courtaulds Ground in Coventry, which in 2011 was reported to be overgrown and derelict, with only one wall of the pavilion still standing.[12]
Below is a complete list of grounds used by Warwickshire County Cricket Club forfirst-class,List A andTwenty20 matches. Statistics are complete through to the end of the 2020 season. Only matches played by Warwickshire CCC at the grounds are recorded in the table. Matches abandoned without any play occurring are not included.
A.^ First-class cricket matches are designed to be contested over multiple days, with each team permitted twoinnings with no limit to the number ofovers in an innings. List A matches are intended to be completed in a single day and restrict each team to a single innings of between 40 and 60 overs, depending on the specific competition. Twenty20 matches restrict each team to a single innings of 20 overs.
B.^ TheWarwickshire Cricket Board team played one List A match at Swans Nest Lane in 2000 and three List A matches at the Bulls Head Ground between 2001 and 2002. The Warwickshire Cricket Board is a separate organisation from Warwickshire County Cricket Club and its matches are not included in the totals.