Castle Avenue Cricket Ground, also known as Clontarf 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 ...

facility in the suburb of Clontarf,

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

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 ...

. It is the primary of the two grounds of

Clontarf Cricket Club Clontarf Cricket Club is a cricket club in Dublin, Ireland, playing in Division 1 of the Leinster Senior League. Based at Clontarf Cricket Club Ground, Castle Avenue, with a shared clubhouse, it also has playing facilities in the grounds of M ...

, the secondary being at

Mount Temple Comprehensive School Mount Temple Comprehensive School is a secondary school in Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland. The school operates under the patronage of the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, and has, as a primary objective, the provision of state-funded second ...

, and the lands on which it lies are also home to two rugby union pitches belonging to Clontarf FC. The ground is one of only four

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 ...

grounds on the island of Ireland.

Location and capacity

The ground lies on a lane off Castle Avenue in central Clontarf, near

Clontarf Castle Clontarf Castle () is a much-modernised castle, dating to 1837, in Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland, an area famous as a key location of the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. There has been a castle on the site since 1172. In modern times, it has functioned ...

, and have been home to Clontarf Cricket Club since 1896. The 50th anniversary of the first game played on the current cricket field was celebrated in 2008. It has a capacity of 3,200 spectators. The playing field's ends are named "Killester" and "City".

History

Clontarf Cricket Club began operations on a site on Vernon Avenue in 1876. They moved to a site near the end of Howth Road in 1892, which they started to share with rugby union side

Clontarf Football Club Clontarf Football Club is an Irish Rugby union club based in Clontarf, Dublin. The club play in Division 1A of the All-Ireland League. History Origins and early history Clontarf Football Club currently play at Castle Avenue, where they mo ...

. The two clubs moved to the site off Castle Avenue in 1896. Operations were suspended from 1914 to 1918, and during World War II, the site was used for allotments. Fully separate playing areas were set out from 1947, and the two clubs swapped fields in 1958, from which time the current playing areas date.

International cricket

Clontarf is one of four

(ODI) grounds in Ireland (the others being Stormont in

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

Malahide Malahide ( ; ) is an affluent coastal settlement in Fingal, County Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Ireland, situated north of Dublin city. It has a village centre surrounded by suburban housing estates, with a population of 18,608 as per the 2022 ...

in Dublin and

Bready Bready () is a small village in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. In the 2001 Census, it had a population of 93 people. It lies within the Strabane District Council area. It is roughly south-west of Derry. Churches *St John's (Church of Irelan ...

County Tyrone County Tyrone (; ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. Its county town is Omagh. Adjoined to the south-west shore of Lough Neagh, the cou ...

), hosting its first ODI match on 21 May 1999 as part of the

1999 Cricket World Cup The 1999 ICC Cricket World Cup, also branded as England '99, was the seventh edition of the Cricket World Cup, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was hosted primarily by England, with selected matches also played in Wales, ...

when

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

played 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 ...

played their first ODI at that venue in July 2007 against the

as part of a quadrangular series. It was selected as a venue to host matches in the

2015 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier The 2015 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier, for the 2016 World Twenty20, was held from 6 to 26 July 2015. The tournament was hosted by both Ireland and Scotland. 51 matches were played among 14 nations, down from 72 matches among 16 nations previous ...

tournament. In May 2017, the venue hosted its first match between two Full Member teams when Bangladesh played New Zealand in the

2017 Ireland Tri-Nation Series The 2017 Ireland Tri-Nation Series was a One Day International cricket tournament that took place in Ireland in May 2017. It was a tri-nation series between Ireland, Bangladesh and New Zealand. The matches were in preparation for the 2017 ICC Cha ...

Other sports

There are also two

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

pitches within the complex, which is home to both cricket and rugby, with Clontarf FC, since 1896. The clubs swapped sides of the complex (fields) in 1958.

Records

International centuries

ODI Centuries

Eight ODI centuries have been scored at the venue.

International five-wicket hauls

Five-wicket hauls have been taken on the ground on four occasions, all of them in ODIs.

Notes

References

External links

Castle Avenue
at

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Cricket Europe profile

Clontarf RFC profile

Clontarf C.C. website
{{Authority control Cricket grounds in the Republic of Ireland Clontarf FC Sports venues in Dublin (city) Sports venues completed in 1958 Cricket grounds in County Dublin