Bourda, or officially Georgetown Cricket Club Ground, 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 Georgetown,

Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...

, used by the

Guyanese cricket team The Guyana national cricket team is the representative first class cricket team of Guyana. The side does not take part in any international competitions, but rather in inter-regional competitions in the Caribbean, such as the Regional Four Day ...

for matches with other nations in the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

as well as some

Test matches Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Indoor cricket, Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (associa ...

involving the

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

. The ground is one of the two cricket stadiums in the

South American South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

mainland and is uniquely surrounded by a

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...

for flood-prevention and drainage reasons.

History

The stadium is located in Bourda in

Georgetown, Guyana Georgetown is the capital (political), capital and largest city of Guyana. It is situated in Demerara-Mahaica, region 4, on the Atlantic Ocean coast, at the mouth of the Demerara River. It is nicknamed the "Garden City of the Caribbean." It is ...

between Regent Street and North Road, and is home to the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC). The ground is reminiscent of old baseball stadiums, due to its

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is unsupported at one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cantilev ...

stands. The Ladies stand is notable, but the more modern, such as the

Rohan Kanhai Rohan Bholalall Kanhai (born 26 December 1935) is a Guyanese former cricketer of 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 featured on ...

stand, blend in well. The liveliest part of the ground with the ubiquitous music and DJs is at The Mound, an unprotected area. The ground was dubbed "The Cornerstone" in 1930 after a game against visiting England. While the crowd are passionate about their cricket, they are also among the most volatile, with mini riots and

pitch invasion A pitch invasion (also known as field storming, rushing the field or rushing the court) occurs when a person or a crowd of people spectating a sporting event run onto the competition area, usually to celebrate or protest an incident, or somet ...

s not uncommon. The worst incident was in 1979 during a

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 established ...

SuperTest when the pavilion was ransacked and players hid in the changing rooms wearing their helmets for added protection. There would be a similar incident in 1999, when the West Indies hosted Australia at the ground, with Australia needing 3 to tie and 4 to win off the last ball of the match. There was a full scale pitch invasion with Australian captain

Steve Waugh Stephen Rodger Waugh (born 2 June 1965) is an Australian former international cricketer and twin brother of cricketer Mark Waugh. A right-handed batsman and a medium-pace bowler, Waugh is considered one of the greatest cricketers of all time. ...

's bat almost being stolen from his grasp and the match deemed a tie, after the West Indies could not effect a run out, due to the stumps having been stolen after

Shane Warne Shane Keith Warne (13 September 1969 – 4 March 2022) was an Australian international cricketer whose career ran from 1992 to 2007. Warne played as a right-arm leg spin bowler and a lower-order right-handed batter for Victoria, Hampshire ...

had made his ground on the second run. Due to the volatile nature of the crowd, the result was not announced until after the players had left the venue. It has hosted 30 Test matches and 10

One Day International One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

. Four of the last five Tests at the ground have ended in draws.Cricinfo Stats Guru filter for Bourda
, Statserver.cricket.org, retrieved 16 March 2006 The ground, which has a capacity of around 10,000, opened in 1884, has seen Test cricket since 1930, and is the only cricket stadium in the world to be situated below sea level. The ground has a moat round it to protect the pitch from flooding. It is the oldest ground in the Caribbean. Cricket matches between

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...

and GCC were played there as early as 1883, and later between GCC and teams from Britain, in 1895 and 1897. It hosted its first Test in February 1930 against England, which the home side won by 289 runs and

George Headley George Alphonso Headley Order of Distinction, OD, Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, MBE (30 May 1909 – 30 November 1983) was a Jamaican cricketer who played 22 Test cricket, Test matches, mostly before World War II. Co ...

scored a century in each innings.

Clive Lloyd Sir Clive Hubert Lloyd (born 31 August 1944) is a Guyanese- British former cricketer and captain of the West Indies cricket team. Lloyd is widely regarded as one of the greatest captains of all time. As a boy he went to Chatham High School in ...

and

have stands named after them at Bourda. The ground did not host matches for the

2007 Cricket World Cup The 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup was the ninth Cricket World Cup, a One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament that took place in the West Indies from 13 March to 28 April 2007. There were a total of 51 matches played, three fewer than at the 2 ...

, as a new stadium, the

Providence Stadium The Providence Stadium or Guyana National Stadium is a sports stadium in Guyana, replacing Bourda as the national stadium. The stadium was built specifically to host Super Eight matches in the 2007 Cricket World Cup held in March and April 2007. ...

, was built. The Guyanese authorities, however, insisted that the Bourda would still be used for first-class cricket.

References

External links

Cricinfo

{{Buildings in Guyana Sports venues completed in 1884 Test cricket grounds in the West Indies Cricket grounds in Guyana Georgetown, Guyana Football venues in Georgetown, Guyana

History

See also

References

External links