VCA Stadium Pitch Report & Average Scores | Nagpur

Ten men's Twenty20 internationals have been played at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium at Jamtha, and across them and the ground's three Indian Premier League matches the scoring rate is 7.80 an over. That is the lowest twenty-over figure of the ten Indian grounds surveyed in this set, and the gap is not marginal: Delhi runs at 8.64, Dharamsala at 8.95, Thiruvananthapuram at 9.42.

The reason shows up in the boundary count rather than in the strike rotation. Four sixes per hundred balls and just under eleven fours per hundred balls are both the lowest of the ten, and 51.8 per cent of all twenty-over runs here have come in boundaries against 64 per cent at Indore. Jamtha has one of the largest playing areas in Indian cricket, with a straight boundary of about eighty yards, and the numbers behave as you would expect them to on a big field.

That single fact drives most of what follows. Batting first has won seven of the ten Twenty20 internationals here, which is the strongest bat-first record in the set. Fifty-over cricket has gone precisely the other way, seven wins to the side chasing from ten matches, and the Test record splits cleanly either side of one November. This page keeps those three records apart rather than averaging them into a verdict.

Format by format, in rates

Means and medians count completed first innings only. The one Twenty20 international shortened to eight overs a side is excluded from the twenty-over average, which therefore rests on nine innings.

Format	Matches	Span	Mean 1st innings	Median	Runs per over	Runs per wicket
Test (men)	7	Nov 2008 – Feb 2023	303	215	2.95	31.2
ODI (men)	10	Oct 2009 – Feb 2025	284	294	5.74	36.5
T20I (men)	10	Dec 2009 – Jan 2026	161	147	7.92	20.7
IPL	3	Apr 2010	149	151	7.44	18.4

The Test mean of 303 is worth almost nothing on its own — the seven first innings were 441, 558 for 6 declared, 193, 330, 215, 205 and 177, so the median of 215 is the better guide. The Test scoring rate of 2.95 an over is the slowest of the six grounds in this survey that have staged Test cricket, and no other is below 3.10.

The twenty-over figures are the other way round: the mean of 161 is pulled up by two outliers at 215 and 238, and the median of 147 is where a Jamtha first innings has actually tended to land. Of the nine full-length first innings, three finished under 130, three between 130 and 159, one in the 160s and two above 200.

Boundaries: the quietest of the ten grounds

Twenty20 international and Indian Premier League deliveries combined, at each ground in this survey.

Ground	Balls	Sixes per 100 balls	Fours per 100 balls	Boundary share of runs	Runs per over
Nagpur (Jamtha)	2,872	4.04	10.79	51.8%	7.80
Cuttack	2,502	4.12	11.87	55.1%	7.86
Mohali	15,450	4.38	13.18	55.4%	8.55
Jaipur	15,804	4.70	12.99	56.5%	8.51
Hyderabad (Uppal)	21,344	5.58	12.15	57.7%	8.54
Lucknow	7,325	5.75	12.25	57.7%	8.67
Delhi	26,421	5.95	12.49	59.5%	8.64
Dharamsala	6,211	6.39	14.04	63.3%	8.95
Indore	2,568	8.53	12.11	64.0%	9.33
Thiruvananthapuram	1,025	9.27	11.02	63.5%	9.42

Nagpur is bottom on all four measures. It is also a small sample — 2,872 deliveries against Delhi's 26,421 — and the caution that goes with that is real. But the sample is not tiny, it spans sixteen years and four different competitions, and the direction has not changed across them: no innings at the ground in either tournament or international twenty-over cricket has produced a boundary share above the survey average.

The size of the field is the obvious explanation and it is a documented physical property of the ground rather than an inference from the scores. Where that leaves Jamtha in the national range of surfaces is set out in the guide to Indian pitch types and conditions.

Batting first has won seven of the ten Twenty20 internationals

Date	First innings	Second innings	Result
9 Dec 2009	Sri Lanka 215/5	India 186/9	Sri Lanka won by 29 runs
8 Mar 2016	Zimbabwe 158/8	Hong Kong 144/6	Zimbabwe won by 14 runs
10 Mar 2016	Zimbabwe 147/7	Scotland 136	Zimbabwe won by 11 runs
12 Mar 2016	Hong Kong 127/7	Scotland 78/2 in 8 overs	Scotland won by 8 wickets
15 Mar 2016	New Zealand 126/7	India 79	New Zealand won by 47 runs
25 Mar 2016	South Africa 122/8	West Indies 123/7	West Indies won by 3 wickets
29 Jan 2017	India 144/8	England 139/6	India won by 5 runs
10 Nov 2019	India 174/5	Bangladesh 144	India won by 30 runs
23 Sep 2022	Australia 90/5 in 8 overs	India 92/4	India won by 6 wickets
21 Jan 2026	India 238/7	New Zealand 190/7	India won by 48 runs

Read the exceptions and the record is starker than seven-three. Two of the three chases that succeeded were in matches cut by rain to eight overs a side, in March 2016 and September 2022. Strip those out and eight full-length Twenty20 internationals have produced seven wins for the side batting first, the single exception being West Indies passing 122 with two balls to spare in March 2016.

Captains have not read it that way. Seven of the ten toss winners chose to field. The five men's matches of the 2016 World Twenty20 played here are the block that shaped the ground's reputation, and their first innings — 158, 147, 127, 126 and 122 — came on a square being used every second or third day; that tournament is described in the guide to the 2016 World Twenty20.

Fifty overs, where the chase wins instead

Date	First innings	Second innings	Result
28 Oct 2009	India 354/7	Australia 255	India won by 99 runs
18 Dec 2009	India 301/7	Sri Lanka 302/7	Sri Lanka won by 3 wickets
22 Feb 2011	Netherlands 292/6	England 296/4	England won by 6 wickets
25 Feb 2011	New Zealand 206	Australia 207/3	Australia won by 7 wickets
28 Feb 2011	Zimbabwe 298/9	Canada 123	Zimbabwe won by 175 runs
12 Mar 2011	India 296	South Africa 300/7	South Africa won by 3 wickets
30 Oct 2013	Australia 350/6	India 351/4	India won by 6 wickets
1 Oct 2017	Australia 242/9	India 243/3	India won by 7 wickets
5 Mar 2019	India 250	Australia 242	India won by 8 runs
6 Feb 2025	England 248	India 251/6	India won by 4 wickets

Seven chases won from ten, and the two largest totals ever conceded here were both hunted down: Australia's 350 for 6 in October 2013 and Sri Lanka's target of 302 in December 2009. The lowest total successfully defended is India's 250 in March 2019, won by eight runs, and the only two comfortable bat-first wins came from 354 for 7 and 298 for 9.

The contrast with the twenty-over record is the most interesting thing on this page, because it is the same square. Two explanations are available and the data here cannot separate them. Fifty-over innings at Jamtha have more often been day fixtures in October and February, where a big field costs the chasing side less over 300 balls than over 120; and a fifty-over chase has ten wickets to spend against a boundary rate that suppresses collapse. The national fifty-over picture is set out in the history of ODI cricket in India.

Seven Tests either side of one November

Test	Balls bowled	Runs per wicket	Runs per over	Pace wickets	Spin wickets
Nov 2008 v Australia	2,355	32.5	3.31	12	24
Feb 2010 v South Africa	2,087	42.7	3.19	19	7
Nov 2010 v New Zealand	1,697	33.4	3.30	13	15
Dec 2012 v England	2,657	43.8	2.28	7	15
Nov 2015 v South Africa	1,487	16.3	2.63	7	33
Nov 2017 v Sri Lanka	1,829	37.7	3.22	9	17
Feb 2023 v Australia	1,415	22.3	2.83	6	24

The first four Tests average 38.1 runs per wicket. The last three average 25.0. November 2015 is where the line falls: forty wickets in 1,487 balls at 16.3 runs each, thirty-three of them to spin, South Africa dismissed for 79, and match referee Jeff Crowe rating the pitch poor — a rating the ICC upheld on the grounds that it had not allowed a fair contest between bat and ball. Hashim Amla, who had made 253 not out on the same square in February 2010 in a match that produced 42.7 runs per wicket, called it the hardest surface he had batted on.

The December 2012 draw is the ground's other extreme and it goes the opposite way: 2,657 balls, the most of any Test here, at 2.28 an over. England batted 875 balls for 330 and then 924 for 352 for 4 declared.

Innings of the match	Runs	Wickets	Runs per wicket
First	2,119	66	32.1
Second	2,569	63	40.8
Third	1,571	64	24.5
Fourth	394	20	19.7

The fall from the second innings to the third — 40.8 down to 24.5 — is the clearest deterioration signal the ground gives. The fourth-innings row rests on two Tests only, because three of the seven ended in an innings victory and one was drawn, so treat 19.7 as an illustration rather than a figure. February 2023 belongs to the same pattern and had a preparation story of its own: photographs of the square before the Test showed the centre watered and rolled while the good-length areas at both ends were left dry, which was widely reported and much argued over. The series it opened is covered in the guide to the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

What the spinners have actually taken

Wickets credited to the bowler only, so run-outs are excluded and the two columns need not sum to the format total. The pace-or-spin label is an editorial classification by bowler.

Format	Pace wickets	Spin wickets	Spin share of overs	Pace average	Spin average	Pace economy	Spin economy
Test (men)	73	135	62%	33.9	29.0	2.90	2.80
ODI (men)	78	59	43%	40.5	36.6	5.91	5.29
T20I (men)	65	56	46%	24.2	21.8	8.07	7.38
IPL	25	18	40%	21.8	17.4	7.61	6.68

Spin has been the better option on average and the cheaper option by economy in all four formats, and the margin is remarkably consistent — between two and four and a half runs per wicket in each. The 62 per cent share of Test overs is high but not extreme by Indian standards; what is unusual is that pace has still taken 73 red-ball wickets here, including Dale Steyn's 7 for 51 in 2010, so this is not a ground where seam has been decorative.

The forty-six per cent spin share in Twenty20 internationals is the figure to notice for short-format previews: on a big field, with a boundary rate this low, captains have been willing to bowl spin through the middle in a way they are not at higher-scoring venues. India's long investment in that skill is described in the guide to India's spin bowling tradition, and Ravichandran Ashwin, with 31 Test wickets here at 15.2, is the ground's leading bowler in any format.

The last five overs, and the first six

Phase	T20I runs per over	T20I balls per wicket	IPL runs per over	IPL balls per wicket
Overs 1–6	7.36	17.1	7.36	19.6
Overs 7–15	7.97	21.1	7.52	27.0
Overs 16–20	8.64	9.6	7.40	6.8

The death overs here are dangerous rather than lucrative. A wicket every 9.6 balls in the last five of a Twenty20 international, and every 6.8 in the tournament matches, is the sort of attrition you would expect on a ground where clearing the rope is hard: batters have to take the risk without the reward, and the run rate only climbs to 8.64. Compare that with grounds where the final five overs run above ten an over and lose a wicket every twelve or thirteen balls.

The powerplay is the flattest phase relative to the rest. At 7.36 an over in both competitions it is barely below the middle overs, which is unusual, and it is the one window at Jamtha where the field restrictions offset the size of the ground.

Preparation, season and the limits of this page

Jamtha's international fixtures cluster tightly. Every Test has been played between early November and mid-February. The fifty-over matches fall in October, December, February and March, the twenty-over internationals in December, January, March, September and November, and the three tournament matches all in April 2010. The single September fixture, in 2022, was reduced to eight overs a side by rain, and one of the 2016 World Twenty20 matches lost overs the same way. The calendar that puts fixtures where it does is set out in the guide to the monsoon and the cricket season.

Three caveats matter before anything here is used as a forecast. The twenty-over sample is thirteen matches. Five of the ten Twenty20 internationals came inside eighteen days in March 2016 on a square in continuous use, which is a single set of conditions counted five times rather than five independent observations. And the Test record has moved once already, in 2015, on a surface the ICC judged had gone too far — a ground whose preparation can change that sharply is one where what has actually been rolled out matters more than any average on this page. Ranked lists of the ground's totals, innings and analyses are on the VCA Stadium records page.

Six readings of the record

• It is the lowest-scoring twenty-over ground in this survey. 7.80 an over, four sixes per hundred balls, 51.8 per cent of runs in boundaries — bottom of the ten on every one of those measures.
• Full-length Twenty20 chases almost never succeed here. Seven of eight have failed; the two chases people remember winning were in rain-reduced eight-over matches.
• Fifty-over cricket reverses it completely. Seven chases won from ten, including targets of 351 and 302, the two largest totals the ground has conceded.
• The Test surface changed in November 2015 and has not gone back. 38.1 runs per wicket across the first four Tests, 25.0 across the last three.
• Spin is better and cheaper in every format, but pace has still taken 73 Test wickets, so this is not a pure turner.
• The death overs punish rather than pay. A wicket every 9.6 balls in the last five of a Twenty20 international is the cost of trying to clear one of the biggest fields in the country.

Where the ground sits among India's larger venues is covered in India's iconic cricket stadiums and among its red-ball venues in the survey of Indian Test cricket grounds; the national hub is at cricket in India.

Sources and method

Every rate, mean, median, phase split, toss count and bowler-type figure on this page was calculated from the ball-by-ball record of matches played at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium, Jamtha, read from the Cricsheet archive (cricsheet.org, ODC-BY 1.0) in August 2026. The archive holds seven men's Tests from November 2008, ten men's one-day internationals from October 2009, ten men's Twenty20 internationals from December 2009 and three Indian Premier League matches from April 2010. Because the ground opened in 2008, that is its complete men's international history rather than a sample of it.

Four women's internationals played here are excluded from every table so that the format figures are not blended across two different scoring contexts. The three matches held at the older Vidarbha Cricket Association Ground in Nagpur, which also fall inside the archive, are excluded for the same reason: they were played on a different square.

Comparative figures for the other nine grounds in the boundary table were computed the same way from the same archive, so they are consistent with each other and with the Nagpur rows; they are not quoted from any published venue summary. Wickets are credited to a bowler only for caught, bowled, lbw, stumped, caught and bowled or hit wicket. The pace-or-spin classification is a judgement by bowler name and every bowler who has appeared here is classified, none omitted.

The ground's opening date and the size of its playing area come from the Vidarbha Cricket Association. The ICC's poor rating for the November 2015 pitch and the referee's reasoning, Hashim Amla's assessment of that surface, and the reporting of how the square was watered and rolled before the February 2023 Test come from ICC statements and contemporary match reporting; none of them is used in a calculation above. Figures current as of 25 August 2026.