Seddon Park

Seddon Park is the fourth largest stadium of New Zealand which is situated close to the center of Hamilton, New Zealand's fifth largest city 150 kilometers south of Auckland. With a capacity of 10,000, the ground is renowned for its village green-style setting, affording a picnic atmosphere for spectators.

The stadium was named after Richard Seddon, the longest-serving Prime Minister of New Zealand. It acts as the home ground for Northern District Knights who play their Super Smash, Plunket Shield and The Ford Trophy here.

History

Initially named as Seddon Park, the oval was renamed to Trust Bank Park following a major renovation and construction of the present pavilion, majorly sponsored by Trust Bank Waikato in 1990.

In 1997, a merger between Westpac and Trust Bank meant the renaming of the ground to WestpacTrust Park in line with the new bank's name. However, when Westpac decided to end its sponsorship of a number of sporting events and grounds in New Zealand, the ground was renamed again as Seddon Park.

It was first used for a major cricket match in February 1914, when the touring Australians played a South Auckland XVIII in a two-day match. The stadium has been hosting first-class cricket since the Northern Districts cricket team made their debut in the Plunket Shield competition in 1956-57.

The ground hosted its first international test match in February 1991 when the hosts contested a match against Sri Lanka that ended in a stalemate.

Major Matches

The first ever International match that was played here was the second ODI match between India and New Zealand in 1981 when the touring team lost both the matches in the series. The ground witnessed its first T20 international when New Zealand took on the West Indies cricket team.

New Zealand has lost only one match (against South Africa) here and has won the other six matches pretty convincingly.

Seddon Park hosted three matches as part of ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 with New Zealand playing the third match here against Bangladesh and winning the match by 3 wickets, thanks to Martin Guptill’s century.

Controversies

New Sky TV cricket commentator Debbie Hockley made a race-based comment about a woman in the crowd during the second Test between the Blackcaps and the West Indies here.

She singled out a woman at the Seddon Park cricket ground, asking, "Is that Serena Williams?" before adding, "I've seen she's playing in the Australian Open this year, which is terrific."

This caused a lot of backlashes leading to New Zealand Cricket Manager of Public Affairs, Richard Boock, apologizing publicly on behalf of her for the controversial comments.

Recent Matches

The second test of the West Indies tour of New Zealand was played here, with New Zealand winning the match by 240 runs.