Niranjan Shah Stadium Records & Stats | Rajkot Cricket Ground
Written and checked by CricketTakenPublished Cricket in India9 min read
The largest victory in India's Test history was won at Khandheri, on the outskirts of Rajkot, in February 2024. India made 445 and 430 for 4 declared, dismissed England for 314 and 122, and won by 434 runs. The margin beat anything India had managed in 92 years of Test cricket, and it came in a match played a fortnight after they had lost the opening Test of the series at home.
The rest of the ground's record is stranger. Three Tests have produced 3,794 runs at 41.2 per wicket and an innings of 649, which reads as one of the flatter squares in the country. But India have won only one of five one-day internationals here, which is a worse return than they have at any other Indian ground with five, and the T20 international record swings from India making 228 for 5 to India being held to 145 for 9.
The venue opened in 2008 as the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium and was renamed the Niranjan Shah Stadium on 14 February 2024, the day before the England Test, after the administrator who ran Saurashtra cricket for four decades. It seats around 28,000. Everything ranked below is computed from ball-by-ball records of every men's international and IPL match played at the ground under either name.
The full ledger
| Format | Matches | Span | India W-L-D | Highest total | Lowest all-out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Test | 3 | Nov 2016 – Feb 2024 | 2-0-1 | India 649-9 dec v West Indies, 2018 | England 122, 2024 |
| ODI | 5 | Jan 2013 – Jan 2026 | 1-4-0 | Australia 352-7, 2023 | — |
| T20I | 6 | Oct 2013 – Jan 2025 | 4-2-0 | India 228-5 v Sri Lanka, 2023 | Sri Lanka 137, 2023 |
| IPL | 10 | Apr 2016 – Apr 2017 | — | Royal Challengers Bangalore 213-2, 2017 | Mumbai Indians 153, 2017 |
Only two teams have been bowled out under 200 in a Test here, both of them West Indies in 2018. In the ODIs, no side has been dismissed for less than 286. That is not a misprint: Rajkot's five fifty-over matches have produced ten innings and the smallest of them is 252 for 6.
India's biggest Test win
| 2024 Test v England | Score | Key innings |
|---|---|---|
| India 1st innings | 445 | Rohit Sharma 131, Ravindra Jadeja 112, Sarfaraz Khan 62 |
| England 1st innings | 314 | Ben Duckett 153 from 151 balls |
| India 2nd innings | 430-4 dec | Yashasvi Jaiswal 214 not out, Shubman Gill 91 |
| England 2nd innings | 122 | Jadeja 5-41; all out in 39.4 overs |
Yashasvi Jaiswal's 214 not out is the highest score made at the ground in any format. He hit twelve sixes in it, which equalled the most struck in any Test innings, and it was his second double hundred in consecutive matches of the same series.
Ravindra Jadeja is a Saurashtra cricketer and Khandheri is his home ground. He made 112 in the first innings and took 5 for 41 in the last, which is the only occasion an Indian has scored a century and taken a five-wicket haul in the same Test at this venue. Across his three Tests here he has 256 runs at 128 and 14 wickets at 20.1 — the best combined return by anyone at the ground.
Ben Duckett's 153 from 151 balls is worth separating from the defeat. England lost by 434 and Duckett still scored at better than a run a ball in an innings that reached 314; no other batter in the match who reached fifty struck at better than 95. The series it sat inside, and the shape of England's approach on that tour, is covered in the India–England rivalry.
649 for 9, and Prithvi Shaw's debut
India's highest total at the ground came in October 2018 against West Indies: 649 for 9 declared in 149.5 overs. Prithvi Shaw made 134 from 154 balls on Test debut, at eighteen, and became the youngest Indian to score a century in his first Test. He reached his hundred from 99 balls, hit nineteen fours, and put on 206 with Cheteshwar Pujara for the second wicket. Virat Kohli made 139, Jadeja 100 and Rishabh Pant 92 from 84 balls. West Indies were bowled out for 181 and 196, Kuldeep Yadav taking 5 for 57, and India won by an innings and 272 runs.
The one Test that did not produce a result was the first, in November 2016, and it produced the most runs. England made 537, with centuries from Ben Stokes, Joe Root and Moeen Ali, then India replied with 488, Murali Vijay batting 301 balls for 126 and Cheteshwar Pujara making 124. Alastair Cook's 130 in England's second innings set India 310 in 49 overs and they finished on 172 for 6. Haseeb Hameed, on debut aged nineteen, made 82 and 59 not out as an opener. Four innings, 1,457 runs, and a draw — the only one in the ground's Test history.
Why India lose one-day internationals here
| ODIs at Rajkot | Result |
|---|---|
| 11 Jan 2013 | England 325-4 beat India 316-9 by 9 runs |
| 18 Oct 2015 | South Africa 270-7 beat India 252-6 by 18 runs |
| 17 Jan 2020 | India 340-6 beat Australia 304 by 36 runs |
| 27 Sep 2023 | Australia 352-7 beat India 286 by 66 runs |
| 14 Jan 2026 | New Zealand 286-3 beat India 284-7 by 7 wickets |
One win in five, and three of the four defeats came by fewer than 70 runs. The pattern is consistent rather than accidental: the side batting first has won four of the five, and in the one match India batted first they won. Shikhar Dhawan made 96 and KL Rahul 80 from 52 balls in that 340 for 6 in January 2020, and Australia's reply of 304 fell 36 short despite Steve Smith's 98.
The most recent match, against New Zealand in January 2026, is the exception that breaks the pattern. India batted first, KL Rahul made 112 not out from 92 balls, and 284 for 7 was not enough: Daryl Mitchell scored 131 and Will Young 87 and New Zealand got home with fifteen balls to spare. That is the only successful chase in the ground's ODI history and the highest second-innings total.
Kohli's 249 runs in five innings, with three fifties and no hundred, is the leading aggregate — an unusual line for a batter who has made ODI centuries at almost every other Indian venue where he has played five times. Rahul's 218 in three innings at 109 is the best average. Kuldeep Yadav leads the wicket-takers with five, at 39; Morne Morkel's 4 for 39 in 2015 is the best single return.
Suryakumar Yadav's 112, and the T20 record
Rajkot has staged six men's T20 internationals and India have won four. The scoring range is enormous.
- India's 228 for 5 against Sri Lanka on 7 January 2023 is the ground's highest total in any short-format match. Suryakumar Yadav made 112 not out from 51 balls with seven fours and nine sixes, and Sri Lanka were bowled out for 137.
- Colin Munro's 109 from 58 balls for New Zealand in November 2017 is the only other T20I century here. India lost that match by 40 runs.
- Yuvraj Singh's 77 from 35 balls in October 2013 chased down Australia's 201 for 7 with two balls to spare — the highest successful T20I pursuit at the ground.
- South Africa's 87 for 9 in June 2022, chasing 170, is the lowest completed innings. Avesh Khan took 4 for 18 and Yuzvendra Chahal 2 for 21.
- Varun Chakravarthy's 5 for 24 against England in January 2025 is the ground's only five-wicket haul in the format, and India still lost by 26 runs.
Chahal's seven wickets at 16.4 make him the leading T20I wicket-taker at the venue. India's overall short-format record and the way it has changed is set out in the history of T20 international cricket in India.
Ten IPL matches and one super over
Gujarat Lions used Khandheri as a home ground for the two seasons the franchise existed, 2016 and 2017, and the IPL has not returned since. Suresh Raina, their captain, is the leading run scorer with 328 across those ten matches, ahead of Brendon McCullum's 280.
Two of the ten ended in a ten-wicket win, which is remarkable in a sample that size. Sunrisers Hyderabad chased 136 without loss in April 2016, David Warner making 74 and Shikhar Dhawan 53. A year later Chris Lynn made 93 from 41 balls and Gautam Gambhir 76 as Kolkata Knight Riders knocked off 184 in 14.5 overs, also without losing a wicket — the largest successful chase in the ground's IPL record.
The season's oddest game was the last. On 29 April 2017 Gujarat Lions made 153 for 9 and Mumbai Indians were bowled out for exactly 153 off the final ball. In the super over Mumbai made 11 for 2 and the Lions managed 6. Virat Kohli's 100 from 63 balls in April 2016 is the only IPL century at the ground, and Royal Challengers Bangalore still lost that match by six wickets. The Gujarat Lions franchise record covers the rest of their two seasons.
What the Rajkot numbers say
- The pitch rewards the first innings, in every format. Thirteen of the twenty-two decided matches across all four competitions have gone to the side batting first, and in all three Tests the side batting first either won or drew.
- Rajkot is a batting ground that has produced two collapses, both against spin. England's 122 in 2024 and West Indies' 181 in 2018 were both taken apart by finger spin on a fourth-day surface, and both sides had scored freely earlier in the same match.
- India's home advantage has not extended to fifty-over cricket. One win in five, and every defeat by a margin small enough to have gone the other way.
- The ground's biggest innings all belong to visitors or to newcomers. Jaiswal, Shaw and Hameed all made their names here in their first or second Test; Duckett, Munro and Mitchell made the largest visiting scores.
- Saurashtra's own players own the venue. Jadeja's 256 runs and 14 wickets in three Tests is the outstanding record at the ground, and it belongs to a man who has been playing on this square since it opened. The state system that produced him is described in the Ranji Trophy guide.
Sources and method
The tables and every aggregate above are computed from Cricsheet's ball-by-ball match archive, published under the Open Data Commons Attribution Licence, covering all men's Tests, ODIs, T20 internationals and IPL matches played at the ground up to early August 2026. Both of the venue's names appear in that archive and both are counted here as the same ground. A bowler is credited with a wicket only where the scorer attributed the dismissal to one, so run-outs sit outside all bowling figures, and averages are quoted only for players who have batted or bowled here more than once.
The stadium's opening year, its capacity and the February 2024 renaming come from Saurashtra Cricket Association and BCCI announcements rather than from the data, as do the series contexts described in prose. Match counts move with each season, so read them as accurate to August 2026. For wider comparison see the survey of India's iconic cricket stadiums, the other newer western-India venue at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatnam, and the cricket in India hub.