Greenfield Stadium Pitch Report & Scores | Thiruvananthapuram

Every international ever played at the Greenfield International Stadium fits on one screen. There have been seven men's fixtures and three women's, spread across nine years, and no Test and no Indian Premier League match at all. That makes averaging a poor way to describe the pitch, because the sample contains an eight-over rain-shortened T20 international, a 104 all out, and a first innings of 390.

The 390 is the ground's defining scorecard. On 15 January 2023 India made 390 for 5 against Sri Lanka — Virat Kohli 166 not out, Shubman Gill 116 — and bowled Sri Lanka out for 73 inside 22 overs. The 317-run margin stood as the largest by runs in the history of one-day international cricket until England beat South Africa by 342 at Southampton in September 2025.

What the aggregate numbers do show, and show consistently across formats, is a fast surface with a fast outfield. The men's T20 international run rate here is 8.93 an over with a boundary on 19.2 per cent of deliveries, and 11.4 per cent of one-day deliveries have gone for four or six. The complication, and the most useful finding on this page, is what the new ball does: a wicket has fallen every 17.3 balls in the powerplay of a T20 international here, the highest rate of any of the ten Indian grounds in this survey.

Every men's international at the ground

Date	Format	First innings	Second innings	Result
7 Nov 2017	T20I	India 67 for 5 (8 overs)	New Zealand 61 for 6 (8 overs)	India won by 6 runs
1 Nov 2018	ODI	West Indies 104	India 105 for 1 (14.5 ov)	India won by 9 wickets
8 Dec 2019	T20I	India 170 for 7	West Indies 173 for 2 (18.3 ov)	West Indies won by 8 wickets
28 Sep 2022	T20I	South Africa 106 for 8	India 110 for 2 (16.4 ov)	India won by 8 wickets
15 Jan 2023	ODI	India 390 for 5	Sri Lanka 73	India won by 317 runs
26 Nov 2023	T20I	India 235 for 4	Australia 191 for 9	India won by 44 runs
31 Jan 2026	T20I	India 271 for 5	New Zealand 225	India won by 46 runs

The inaugural fixture in November 2017 was cut to eight overs a side by rain and made the ground India's fiftieth international venue. The most recent, in January 2026, produced 496 runs in a twenty-over match, with New Zealand bowled out for 225 in reply to India's 271 for 5 — a losing total that would be a winning one almost anywhere.

Between those two extremes sit three matches in which the side batting first made between 106 and 170 and two in which it made 235 or more. That is not a distribution; it is a set of individual results, and it is why the sections below give rates rather than par scores.

Rates rather than averages

Format	Matches in archive	Span	Runs per over	Runs per wicket	Boundary share of balls	Dot-ball share
ODI (men)	2	Nov 2018 – Jan 2023	5.53	26.9	11.4%	52.3%
T20I (men)	5	Nov 2017 – Jan 2026	8.93	27.7	19.2%	35.5%

The twenty-over run rate of 8.93 is the highest at any of the ten grounds surveyed here on a sample of more than three matches, and the boundary share of 19.2 per cent is the highest at any ground here with more than three matches in the format. The one-day boundary share of 11.4 per cent is at the high end too, and that figure is not inflated by the 390 alone: the 2018 match involved West Indies being bowled out for 104 and India knocking off the target in under fifteen overs, both at a brisk rate.

Runs per wicket tells the other half of the story. At 27.7 in twenty-over cricket and 26.9 in fifty-over cricket, wickets have come reasonably cheap here despite the fast scoring. This is a ground where things happen, in both directions.

The powerplay is the danger zone

Phase	Men's T20I runs per over	Men's T20I balls per wicket
Overs 1–6	7.61	17.3
Overs 7–15	9.21	25.1
Overs 16–20	10.56	13.2

This is an unusual profile and it is the most interesting thing in the data. At almost every Indian ground the powerplay is the safest phase for a batting side and the middle overs are where wickets start falling. At Thiruvananthapuram it is the reverse: a wicket every 17.3 balls in the first six overs, then a stretch between overs seven and fifteen where the rate climbs above nine an over and wickets dry up.

The physical reading is straightforward. Kerala's coastal humidity gives the new ball movement and the surface has enough carry to reward it; once the ball softens and the field spreads, there is nothing left to stop scoring. That reading is consistent with the bowling splits below and with the fact that the ground's two most emphatic collapses — West Indies for 104, Sri Lanka for 73 — both began with the new ball.

Pace against spin

Wickets credited to the bowler only, so run-outs are excluded, and occasional bowlers who could not be classified are left out of the shares.

Format	Pace wickets	Spin wickets	Spin share of overs	Pace average	Spin average	Pace economy	Spin economy
ODI (men)	17	7	27%	30.5	19.7	5.97	4.36
T20I (men)	40	16	37%	25.7	34.5	9.51	8.81

The two rows disagree, which on samples of two and five matches is exactly what should be expected. In fifty-over cricket spin has been far cheaper — an average of 19.7 against 30.5 — largely because Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav shared seven wickets in the two matches. In twenty-over cricket pace has been much the better wicket-taking option, averaging 25.7 against spin's 34.5, and Arshdeep Singh's nine wickets are the most at the ground by any bowler, including a five-wicket haul in January 2026.

Neither row should be used to predict a team selection. What both agree on is that the pace economy is high — 5.97 and 9.51 — and that is a genuine property of a quick outfield rather than a small-sample artefact. The general question of how Indian surfaces divide the two disciplines is covered in Indian pitch types and conditions.

Toss and result

Across the seven men's internationals, the captain winning the toss has chosen to field four times and bat three times. The side batting first has won four and lost three. Both one-day captains chose to bat, and the results split: India batted first and won by 317 runs in 2023, while West Indies batted first in 2018, were bowled out for 104 in 31.5 overs and lost by nine wickets.

In the twenty-over matches the field-first preference has been near-universal — four of five — and it has produced two wins and two defeats. Given the powerplay wicket rate above, that preference may be worth questioning: batting first at this ground has meant facing the new ball on a surface that helps it, but so has batting second, and nothing in the record suggests the pitch deteriorates.

The women's internationals, counted separately

Three women's T20 internationals were played here between India and Sri Lanka in late December 2025, and India won all three. The middle match, on 28 December, produced India's 221 for 2 against Sri Lanka's 191 for 6 — 412 runs in a women's twenty-over international, and a total of 221 that reads oddly against the 112 for 7 Sri Lanka managed on the same square two days earlier.

Those matches are excluded from the men's tables above, but they support the same reading of the ground: a fast outfield, a high scoring ceiling and a new ball that does something. The women's game in India, and the venues that now host it, is covered in the history of India's women's cricket and in the guide to the Women's Premier League.

Season, humidity and the practical caveats

The ground sits at Karyavattom on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram, a few kilometres from the Arabian Sea, and it is the most humid venue on the Indian international circuit. Its fixtures have all fallen between late September and the end of January — after the south-west monsoon and largely around the north-east monsoon, which is why the inaugural match was washed down to eight overs and why rain is the standing risk here rather than heat.

The practical effects are three. Evening dew is heavy, which is a reason for the field-first preference even if the results do not yet reward it. The new ball moves for longer than it does inland, which the powerplay numbers reflect. And the outfield, laid on a modern drainage bed, dries and plays quickly once the rain stops. The role of the monsoon in shaping where and when Indian cricket is played is set out in the monsoon and the cricket season.

The largest caveat is the sample. Seven men's matches is fewer than most grounds in this survey stage in two years, and no first-class or franchise cricket in the archive fills the gap. Any figure on this page can be moved substantially by one more match.

Four conclusions worth carrying

• The powerplay wicket rate is the finding. One wicket every 17.3 balls in the first six overs of a men's T20 international is the highest of the ten grounds surveyed, and it inverts the normal Indian shape.
• The middle overs are where the runs are. Nine and a quarter an over between overs seven and fifteen, with a wicket only every twenty-five balls, is a scoring window rather than a consolidation phase.
• The 390 is a real scorecard, not a par score. India's total against Sri Lanka in January 2023 came in a series whitewash against a side that then collapsed for 73. Treating it as a ground average would be a serious misreading.
• A losing total of 225 in a twenty-over match tells you most of what you need. New Zealand made it here in January 2026 and lost by 46 runs. The ceiling at this venue is very high.

Ranked lists of the largest totals, individual innings and bowling returns are on the Greenfield International Stadium records page. The ground's place among the country's venues is covered in India's iconic cricket stadiums, and the national picture at cricket in India. For another young ground where the sample is still small, see the Ekana Cricket Stadium pitch report.

Sources and method

Every scoring, phase, toss and bowler-type figure on this page is computed from the Cricsheet ball-by-ball archive (cricsheet.org, ODC-BY 1.0) as read in August 2026. The archive holds two men's ODIs at this ground from November 2018, five men's T20 internationals from November 2017 and three women's T20 internationals from December 2025. No Test and no IPL match has been played at the venue. Counts are counts within the archive rather than a complete fixture history, and domestic first-class and List A cricket played here is not covered by it.

Because the sample is so small, no first-innings mean is quoted for either format: the full list of matches is given instead, and rate-based figures — runs per over, runs per wicket, boundary and dot-ball shares, phase splits — are used in place of averages that two or five matches cannot support. Where a match was shortened by rain, its deliveries are still included in those rate calculations.

Wickets are attributed to a bowler only for caught, bowled, lbw, stumped, caught and bowled or hit wicket, so pace and spin columns need not sum to the format total. The pace-or-spin classification is an editorial judgement made by bowler name, with any bowler who could not be classified confidently omitted rather than guessed.

The November 2017 first international, the ground's status as India's fiftieth international venue, its location at Karyavattom and its seating — published variously at around 50,000 to 55,000 — come from Kerala Cricket Association and ESPNcricinfo ground information and are descriptive, not computed. The explanation offered for the powerplay wicket rate in terms of coastal humidity is an interpretation of the pattern in the data, not a measured result.