ACA-VDCA Stadium Pitch Report: Visakhapatnam Scores
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Cricket in India11 min read
Visakhapatnam is the most reliably successful Test ground India have. Three matches, three India wins, and each of the three won by a margin of more than a hundred runs: 246 in November 2016, 203 in October 2019 and 106 in February 2024. No other venue in this era has given India a hundred per cent record across three completed home Tests against three different opponents.
What makes the ground interesting is that those wins have not come on the sort of surface the record implies. The Test first-innings mean here is 451 and the runs-per-wicket figure is 33.5, both comfortably above what a designed home advantage would produce. India have won at Visakhapatnam by making very large first-innings totals and then bowling well enough on a fair pitch, rather than by preparing a square that does the work for them.
The one-day record runs from one extreme to the other. India made 387 for 5 against West Indies in December 2019 and were bowled out for 117 by Australia in March 2023, and both happened on the same ground inside four years. The Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium is a venue that rewards good batting rather than one that guarantees it.
Scoring by format at Visakhapatnam
Computed from the delivery-level record for this venue. Boundary share is the proportion of runs scored in fours and sixes; balls per wicket counts legal deliveries only.
| Format | Matches | Span | Mean 1st innings | Median | Runs per over | Runs per wicket | Balls per wicket | Boundary share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Test (men) | 3 | Nov 2016 – Feb 2024 | 451 | 455 | 3.36 | 33.5 | 59.8 | 56% |
| ODI (men) | 11 | Apr 2005 – Dec 2025 | 276 | 270 | 6.06 | 40.2 | 39.7 | 52% |
| ODI (women) | 5 | Oct 2025 | 236 | 232 | 5.41 | 34.9 | 38.7 | 54% |
| T20I (men) | 5 | Feb 2016 – Jan 2026 | 162 | 179 | 8.05 | 22.4 | 16.7 | 61% |
| IPL | 17 | Apr 2012 – Mar 2025 | 170 | 167 | 8.23 | 24.0 | 17.5 | 59% |
The Test boundary share of 56 per cent is the highest red-ball figure of any venue in this group and is the single most revealing number in the table. More than half of all runs scored in five-day cricket here come in fours and sixes, which means batters are able to play attacking shots against the new ball and against spin without excessive risk. That is a fast outfield and a true bounce, not a slow low turner.
The men's one-day mean of 276 looks modest until the spread is examined. The eleven first innings run 387, 356, 321, 289, 288, 270, 269, 269, 259, 215 and 117. Remove the 117 — an anomaly discussed below — and the mean rises to 292.
Three Tests, three India wins
| Dates | Match | Innings | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2016 | India v England | India 455; England 255; India 204; England 158 | India won by 246 runs |
| Oct 2019 | India v South Africa | India 502-7 dec; South Africa 431; India 323-4 dec; South Africa 191 | India won by 203 runs |
| Feb 2024 | India v England | India 396; England 253; India 255; England 292 | India won by 106 runs |
October 2019 is the ground's high-water mark for batting. Mayank Agarwal made 215 from 371 balls and Rohit Sharma 176 from 244 — the innings in which Rohit's move to the top of the Test order stopped being an experiment — and the opening partnership was worth 317. South Africa then replied with 431. An aggregate of 1,447 runs across four innings, with a result, is the sort of match only a genuinely good pitch produces.
February 2024 was the tightest. India made 396, with Yashasvi Jaiswal scoring 209 from 290 balls including seven sixes, and no other India batter reaching 35. England replied with 253, India managed 255 in the third innings — Shubman Gill making 104 — and England fell 106 short chasing 399. Jasprit Bumrah was player of the match with a spell on the third morning that effectively decided the game.
November 2016 was the most attritional of the three, and the only one in which the pitch behaved like a conventional subcontinental surface, with India's second innings of 204 the lowest completed total in the set until England's 158 finished the match.
The series contexts sit on the Test cricket in India page, and the ground's standing among Indian Test venues on the India Test cricket grounds page.
The one-day range: 387 at one end, 117 at the other
The eleven men's one-day internationals here span twenty years and include some of the widest scoring variance any Indian ground offers.
| Date | Scores | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Apr 2005 | India 356-9; Pakistan 298 | India won by 58 runs |
| Oct 2010 | Australia 289-3; India 292-5 | India won by 5 wickets |
| Nov 2013 | India 288-7; West Indies 289-8 | West Indies won by 2 wickets |
| Oct 2016 | India 269-6; New Zealand 79 | India won by 190 runs |
| Oct 2018 | India 321-6; West Indies 321-7 | Match tied |
| Dec 2019 | India 387-5; West Indies 280 | India won by 107 runs |
| Mar 2023 | India 117; Australia 121-0 | Australia won by 10 wickets |
| Dec 2025 | South Africa 270; India 271-1 | India won by 9 wickets |
Two results bracket the ground's reputation. In December 2019 India made 387 for 5, the highest total the venue has staged, with Rohit Sharma player of the match. In March 2023 India were dismissed for 117 in 26 overs and Australia chased it without losing a wicket in eleven, Mitchell Starc taking the award. Nothing about the square changed between those two matches; the conditions on the morning did, and India batted into them badly.
The two other results worth noting are the October 2018 tie against West Indies — one of a small number in India's one-day history — and New Zealand's 79 all out in October 2016, the lowest completed innings at the ground in any format, in a match Amit Mishra won with a four-wicket haul.
Where these totals sit nationally is on the India ODI highest team totals page and the India ODI lowest team totals page.
The 2025 Women's World Cup block
Visakhapatnam staged five matches of the 2025 women's tournament in October, and the set produced a mean first innings of 236 with a boundary share of 54 per cent.
| Date | Scores | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 9 Oct 2025 | India 251; South Africa 252-7 | South Africa won by 3 wickets |
| 12 Oct 2025 | India 330; Australia 331-7 | Australia won by 3 wickets |
| 13 Oct 2025 | Bangladesh 232-6; South Africa 235-7 | South Africa won by 3 wickets |
| 16 Oct 2025 | Bangladesh 198-9; Australia 202-0 | Australia won by 10 wickets |
| 26 Oct 2025 | New Zealand 168; England 172-2 | England won by 8 wickets |
Every one of the five was won by the side batting second. That is the most emphatic chasing record on this page and, on a five-match sample from a single fortnight, almost certainly a function of evening dew rather than of the square.
The 12 October match is the outstanding one. India made 330 and lost. Alyssa Healy's 142 from 107 balls took Australia to 331 for 7 with an over to spare, the largest successful chase the ground has seen in any format. Smriti Mandhana made 80 and Pratika Rawal 75 in India's total. The tournament's wider Indian context is on the India women's cricket history page.
Bowling: Bumrah and Ashwin at the top
| Bowler | Balls | Runs | Wickets | Average | Economy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ravichandran Ashwin | 1,224 | 699 | 32 | 21.8 | 3.43 |
| Ravindra Jadeja | 1,146 | 669 | 24 | 27.9 | 3.50 |
| Kuldeep Yadav | 510 | 430 | 24 | 17.9 | 5.06 |
| Jasprit Bumrah | 403 | 285 | 19 | 15.0 | 4.24 |
| Mohammed Shami | 530 | 379 | 14 | 27.1 | 4.29 |
| James Anderson | 420 | 178 | 9 | 19.8 | 2.54 |
| Umesh Yadav | 348 | 288 | 7 | 41.1 | 4.97 |
| Keshav Maharaj | 534 | 391 | 7 | 55.9 | 4.39 |
Threshold: 280 legal deliveries at the venue across all formats in the archive.
Bumrah's 19 wickets at 15.0 is the best average on the page and the strongest argument that this ground gives fast bowling more than its Indian location suggests. James Anderson's economy of 2.54 across 420 deliveries is the tightest figure in the table and came in the two England Tests.
Ashwin's 32 wickets at 21.8 is the leading haul and a much better return than he has managed at Rajkot. Keshav Maharaj's seven wickets at 55.9 across 534 deliveries is the least productive line in the table and is a fair summary of what happened to South Africa's spin attack in October 2019.
Virat Kohli's 975 runs at 97.5 across formats is the largest aggregate by any batter at the ground, and Rohit Sharma's 902 at 56.4 is next. Their wider records are on the India Test most runs page, and the venue's own leaderboards on the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium records page.
Toss and the short formats
Across the 36 completed men's matches at the venue in the archive, the toss winner has won 21 — a modest edge, and the strongest such figure in this group of grounds.
All three Tests began with India winning the toss and batting, and all three were won batting first. In one-day internationals captains have chosen to field in eight of eleven tosses, and chasing sides have won seven of ten results. In Twenty20 internationals every one of the five tosses produced a decision to field.
| Format | Chose to bat | Chose to field | Bat first won | Chasing won |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Test | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| ODI (men) | 3 | 8 | 3 | 7 |
| T20I (men) | 0 | 5 | 2 | 3 |
| IPL | 8 | 9 | 8 | 9 |
The IPL split of 8-9 across 17 matches is as close to even as a sample that size can be, and it covers a long span — the ground hosted Deccan Chargers in 2012, was a secondary home for several franchises through the 2015 to 2019 period, and returned to the competition in 2025.
The Twenty20 international boundary share of 61 per cent is the highest figure anywhere on this page. Combined with 22.4 runs per wicket, it describes a short-format ground where scoring is fast but wickets are not cheap — the 215 for 7 New Zealand made in January 2026 and Australia's 208 for 3 in November 2023 are the two largest totals in the format here.
What the record actually shows
Three observations that the headline figures do not make obvious.
The Test record is a batting record, not a spin record. India's three wins came from first innings of 455, 502 and 396, and the ground's 59.8 balls per wicket in the format is high. Sides have lost here by being out-batted rather than by being out-turned.
Fast bowling has been more effective at Visakhapatnam than at any other venue in this group. Bumrah at 15.0, Anderson at an economy of 2.54 and Shami at 27.1 are returns from a surface with carry, and Starc's decisive spell in March 2023 belongs in the same column.
And the chasing record in the shortest formats has been overstated by one unusual fortnight. Five from five in the women's World Cup is striking, but the men's Indian Premier League record over 17 matches is 9-8, which is no edge at all. Anyone reading a dew advantage into this ground should be clear that it shows up in October and November evening fixtures and not across the record as a whole. Comparable eastern-coast conditions are covered on the Barabati Stadium pitch report, the ground's national standing on the iconic Indian cricket stadiums page, the competition itself at the Indian Premier League hub, and the rest of the Indian game at the cricket in India hub.
Sources and method
Scoring rates, wicket intervals, boundary shares, first-innings distributions and toss records are computed from ball-by-ball delivery data for this venue, covering men's Tests, men's and women's one-day internationals, Twenty20 internationals and Indian Premier League matches from April 2005 to January 2026. The three venue name variants in the source data all refer to this ground and were merged before counting.
Results, margins, individual scores, tosses and player-of-the-match awards were checked against ESPNcricinfo scorecards and Statsguru ground records for the Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, read on 30 August 2026.
The men's one-day mean is given both with and without India's 117 in March 2023, because a single innings that far below the distribution changes the figure materially and readers should see both.
No pace-versus-spin breakdown is offered. Bowler-type classification for the full venue archive could not be established to the same standard as the rest of these figures, and an estimated split would not belong beside computed ones.
Match counts reflect fixtures with complete delivery-level records rather than every match the ground has staged. Figures will move with future allocations.