Top 5 best grounds for batting in Test history

Cricket over the years has evolved into a batsman’s game even in Test matches. No longer do we see threatening, intimidating spells very often in the longer formats. While the critics mull over the lack of assistance from the pitches of late, history suggests that there have always been venues that traditionally favored batters. Here is a list of 5 of them: Note 1: The list is generated based on the batting average per dismissal in an innings.Note 2: Only the venues that hosted a minimum of 20 matches are taken into consideration.

#5 Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, Colombo

An average of 35.46 runs per wicket in 38 Test matches. Mahela Jaywardene, with 2921 runs from 42 innings at a remarkable average of 74.89, is the most successful batsman on this deck, while Kumar Sangakkara’s tally of 2312 at 74.58 per dismissal comes as the second best.

Their world record partnership of 624 runs – for any wicket – in Tests came at this venue in 2006 against South Africa.

#4 Adelaide Oval, Adelaide

While 53 out of the 72 Tests played at Adelaide have produced results, the average runs per wicket still remains on the higher side: 35.73.

A total of 86922 runs have been scored here at the cost of 2419 wickets. Ricky Ponting heads the leading run-scorers list with 1743 runs at 60.10 with 6 tons from 31 innings.

#3 Green Park, Kanpur

How can a list of batting friendly grounds be without an Indian entry? The stadium at Kanpur sits third in the list with an average of 35.95 runs per dismissal. In the 21 Tests hosted by the venue since 1952, 12 have resulted in deadlocks.

20,423 runs were recorded with 568 dismissals here. India’a 676/7 at a run rate of 4.04 in the second innings of the 1986 Test against Sri Lanka is the highest team total till date. Gundappa Viswanath with 776 runs at 86.22 has relished batting at the venue. Former captain Mohammad Azharuddin has scored 543 runs in just five innings at an average of 181.00.

#2 Bourda, Georgetown, Guyana

Considering the fact that the Windies were blessed with a world class bowling line-up in the 1980s, it is rather surprising to see that this ground is among the top batting friendly venues in the world. 36.26 runs have been scored on average per wicket in the ground: 29,120 runs in 30 Tests. 17 out of those 30 matches failed to produce a winner.

West Indies’ total of 569 in 1991 against Australia is the highest team total made here. Gary Sobers leads the run-scoring charts with 853 runs including 5 centuries at an average of 94.77. Shivnarine Chanderpaul averages 126.33 in the 9 innings he has batted here, with 4 tons and 2 50s.

#1 Antigua Recreation Ground, St John\'s, Antigua

Out of the 22 matches played on this Caribbean deck, only 10 have produced a result. Short boundaries make batting easy here. A wicket here costs 38.47 runs on average and the highest team total is 751/5 dec., by West Indies against England in 2004.

The venue is better remembered for Brian Lara’s record-breaking knocks: both his 375 and 400* came in Antigua. A total of 24,084 runs have been scored against the 626 wickets to fall here. The runs have come at a rate of 3.04.

The ground hosted its first Test in 1981 and has only witnessed three tests in the last 10 years.