Emirates Old Trafford: A Complete Ground Guide

Emirates Old Trafford is the second-oldest Test ground in England and the one that has changed the most. Everything a visitor sees today — the bowl, the hotel, the pavilion, the direction the pitch runs — postdates 2010. The square itself was picked up and turned through ninety degrees. What survived the rebuild is the weather, the crowd, and a record book that includes the two most famous individual feats in English cricket history.

This guide covers the ground as it is now: how the rotation changed the cricket, which stands are worth paying for, how Lancashire sell their tickets, and what happened here that everyone else's ground would trade a decade for. For the practicalities of a specific day — gates, bags, the tram queue — the Old Trafford match day guide is the companion page.

First, the other Old Trafford

There are two Old Traffords, half a mile apart, and every summer a number of people arrive at the wrong one.

Emirates Old Trafford is the cricket ground: Talbot Road, Stretford, M16 0PX, tram stop Old Trafford. Old Trafford without qualification is usually taken to mean Manchester United's football stadium: Sir Matt Busby Way, M16 0RA, tram stop Old Trafford as well, which is where the confusion comes from — the football ground is actually nearer the Wharfside and Exchange Quay stops.

Both take their name from the same district. Neither has anything to do with the other. If you are going to the cricket, the giveaway is that you should be able to see a hotel built into the side of the ground.

From 1857 to the rebuild

Manchester Cricket Club moved to the site in 1857 after its previous ground was taken for the Art Treasures Exhibition. Lancashire County Cricket Club formed in 1864 and has played there ever since. The first Test came in 1884, making Old Trafford the second ground in England to stage one, a year after the Oval and the same year as Lord's.

The red-brick pavilion dates from 1895 and is Grade II listed. For most of the twentieth century it looked out across a square that ran roughly east to west, which had one persistent problem: at certain times of day the sun sat directly behind the bowler's arm, and play had to stop.

By the late 2000s the ground was falling behind. Lancashire were at genuine risk of losing Test status, and their answer was the most drastic redevelopment any English cricket ground has undertaken.

The rotation

Between 2010 and 2013 Lancashire turned the playing square ninety degrees, from east-west to north-south, and rebuilt the ground around the new alignment.

The stated reasons were practical. The low-sun problem disappeared. The site's long axis was freed up for the new pavilion, the media facilities and the hotel. Sightlines improved everywhere because the ground could finally be built as a bowl rather than as a strip with buildings at the ends.

The cricketing consequence took a few seasons to show. The relaid square drains faster than the old one and plays truer: good carry for the seamers in the first session, less lateral movement than the ground's reputation suggests, and turn arriving late rather than early. Lancashire won the County Championship in 2011 while the rebuild was under way, playing their home matches at Aigburth in Liverpool — the club's first outright title since 1934, won in exile from its own ground.

How the pitch plays

Old Trafford has a reputation as England's spinning ground, and it is half-earned. The reputation rests overwhelmingly on one match in 1956 and on the uncovered pitches of the era, which behaved nothing like a modern square.

What is true today:

• Bounce is good and consistent. The surface carries through to the keeper better than at Trent Bridge or the Oval, which suits tall seamers and makes the short ball a live option.
• Seam movement is moderate, and the ground is much less swing-dependent than Trent Bridge. Overhead conditions matter, as they do everywhere in England, but a grey day at Old Trafford is not the transformation it is in Nottingham.
• Spin arrives on days three to five, and a frontline spinner is worth picking here in a way they are not at Headingley. Fourth-innings chases above 250 are difficult.
• Drainage is excellent, which matters more here than anywhere. The 2013 outfield can take heavy rain and restart within the hour, and it has saved days of cricket that the old ground would have lost entirely.

The rain question

Manchester takes roughly twice the annual rainfall of central London, and Old Trafford has lost more Test cricket to weather than any other English ground. This is not a myth, and it is not fixable.

What has changed is the recovery time. The modern drainage and the hover covers mean a shower that would once have written off a session now costs twenty minutes. The days genuinely lost now are the ones where it simply rains all day — and in a July or August Test slot, that is a minority of days rather than a coin flip.

The practical advice is unchanged: buy day tickets rather than a full match package if you are travelling from a distance, check the forecast the night before, and treat any Old Trafford ticket as containing a weather premium the price does not reflect.

The two matches

1956: Laker's 19 for 90. Jim Laker took nine for 37 in Australia's first innings and ten for 53 in the second. Nineteen wickets in a single first-class match had never happened before and has not happened since. Tony Lock, an excellent spinner bowling unchanged at the other end for most of the match, took one wicket. The pitch was drying after rain and it turned square, which is the standing objection to the feat and does nothing to diminish it: Lock was on the same pitch.

1993: the ball of the century. Shane Warne's first delivery in Ashes cricket, to Mike Gatting. It drifted a foot outside leg stump, pitched in rough well outside the line, and spun back far enough to clip the top of off. Gatting, who was as good a player of spin as England had, stood still for several seconds. Legspin had been treated as a curiosity in English conditions for thirty years; after that afternoon it was not.

2005 deserves a mention alongside them. The third Test of that Ashes series drew a final-morning crowd so large that Lancashire closed the gates with about 20,000 people still queueing outside. Australia hung on nine wickets down. It is the best drawn Test most people who saw it will ever watch.

The stands

Stand	Position	Notes
Pavilion	West	1895 building, Grade II listed, members
The Point	South-west	Conference venue and premium seating, best elevation
Hilton Garden Inn	West	Hotel built into the ground, pitch-view rooms
Party Stand	East	General admission, loudest block, sun for most of the day
Members' Pavilion terraces	West	Shaded, closest to the square
Temporary ends seating	North and south	Installed for internationals only; lowest sightlines

The Point is the best seat in the ground if you can get one, sitting high and square with shade from mid-afternoon. The Party Stand is the opposite proposition and is entirely honest about it.

Getting there

Emirates Old Trafford is two minutes' walk from the Old Trafford Metrolink stop on the Altrincham line. From Manchester Piccadilly the journey takes about twenty-five minutes including the change; from Deansgate-Castlefield it is a short hop.

Trafford Bar is one stop further along and about eight minutes' walk, and it is consistently the better option after play, when the queue at Old Trafford stop runs down the road.

Do not drive. The streets around the ground are permit-controlled and enforced on match days, and there is no meaningful spectator parking.

Tickets

Lancashire sell directly. The order runs: Lancashire members, then a general public sale opening in the winter, then returns through the club as the fixture approaches. There is no ballot.

Test day tickets are cheaper than the equivalent at Lord's and usually cheaper than the Oval. Days four and five carry a refund arrangement because they may not be played, and at Old Trafford that arrangement is worth more than at any other ground for the obvious reason.

The Hundred and T20 international fixtures are the cheapest way in, and the family pricing on Hundred double-headers is genuinely good value. The England cricket tickets guide compares the sale structures across the Test grounds.

Lancashire, the Originals and the women's game

Lancashire are one of the biggest counties by membership and one of the more frustrating by trophy count — the 2011 Championship was their first outright title in 77 years. Their Vitality Blast side draws large Friday-night crowds, and the Roses fixtures against Yorkshire remain the best-attended county cricket in the country.

Manchester Originals play their men's and women's Hundred fixtures at the ground in August, generally as double-headers. The women's side has been among the stronger teams in the competition and the fixtures are cheap, well attended and a good introduction for anyone new to the sport.

England Women play internationals at Old Trafford, and the tier-one domestic restructure from 2025 established a professional women's team under the Lancashire banner using the ground and its outgrounds.

Accessibility and facilities

The 2013 rebuild left the ground almost entirely step-free, with lift access to the upper tiers and wheelchair positions distributed around the bowl rather than concentrated at one end. Companion seats are sold alongside, through an access booking route rather than the general sale. The listed 1895 pavilion is the exception and remains what it is.

Food and bar provision is above average for an English ground, helped by the permanent conference infrastructure. You may bring your own food; alcohol allowances are set per fixture.

1902, and the three-run Test

Before Laker and before Warne there was 1902, and it is the match that established Old Trafford as a ground where Ashes series get decided.

Australia made 299 in their first innings, Victor Trumper reaching a century before lunch on the opening morning — the first batter to do so in a Test, on a pitch that had been under water two days earlier. England replied with 262. Australia collapsed to 86 in their second innings, leaving England needing 124 to win and to keep the series alive.

They were 92 for three. Then they lost seven wickets for 28 runs and were bowled out for 120. Australia won by three runs, retained the Ashes, and left England with a set of selection arguments that ran for a generation — Archie MacLaren's decision to leave out Sydney Barnes and George Hirst is still cited in cricket writing as the definitive example of a captain out-thinking himself.

It is one of only a handful of Tests decided by fewer than five runs in the sport's entire history, and until Edgbaston in 2005 it was the narrowest margin in Ashes cricket.

Lancashire, and a strange trophy record

Lancashire are one of the largest counties in England by membership, one of the wealthiest, and for most of the twentieth century one of the least successful in the Championship relative to their resources.

The club won the title repeatedly in the 1920s and early 1930s — five times between 1926 and 1934 — and then did not win it outright again until 2011, a gap of seventy-seven years. That drought is the defining fact of the club's modern history and produced a particular kind of supporter: knowledgeable, well-attended and permanently braced for disappointment.

The 2011 title had a further oddity. Old Trafford was mid-redevelopment, so Lancashire played their home Championship matches that season at Aigburth in Liverpool, a club ground with a capacity in the low thousands. The county won its first outright Championship in seventy-seven years without playing a single home four-day match at its own ground.

The white-ball record is stronger. Lancashire have won the domestic one-day and T20 competitions on multiple occasions, and Old Trafford is a ground that suits limited-overs cricket — good carry, a fast outfield, and a bowl that holds noise.

The Roses match

Lancashire against Yorkshire is the oldest and best-supported rivalry in county cricket, and it predates every other derby in English sport that is still played annually.

The fixture has been contested since 1849. It has produced its own literature, its own grievances and a well-documented tradition of extreme caution — the two counties spent much of the mid-twentieth century playing out draws on the basis that losing to the other was worse than not winning. Wilfred Rhodes reportedly described a Roses match as being played in a silence broken only by an appeal.

The modern version is more open, partly because the two counties have spent recent seasons in different divisions and the Championship fixture has not always happened. The T20 Roses match at Old Trafford, however, is reliably the best-attended county cricket in the north of England and sells out weeks ahead.

If you want to see Old Trafford full without paying international prices, this is the fixture.

A day at the ground, hour by hour

Test cricket is eight hours long and the ground behaves differently across them. What to expect at Old Trafford specifically:

Before 10am. Gates open. The queue at the Talbot Road entrance builds fast, and the tram from the city centre is at its most crowded between 9.15 and 10.00. Coming in an hour earlier is the difference between twenty minutes of queueing and none.

10.00 to 11.30. The first session, and at Old Trafford the one most likely to produce wickets. The ball moves, the crowd is sober, and the cricket is at its most technical. If you only watch one session properly, make it this one.

Lunch, around 1pm. Forty minutes. The concourses fill immediately; the queues at the far side of the ground are consistently shorter than those near the Party Stand.

Afternoon session. Historically the flattest period of a Manchester day: the ball has stopped doing much, the batting side is set, and the crowd's attention drifts. This is when to walk the ground, look at the pavilion, and find the shade.

Tea, around 3.40. Twenty minutes.

Final session. The best atmosphere of the day and, in July, the best light. Old Trafford's evening session with the new ball due is the most likely period for the match to turn.

After play. The tram queue is substantial. Trafford Bar, six minutes' walk further, is the difference between fifteen minutes and forty-five.

What to bring to a Manchester Test

This sounds trivial and it is the single most common cause of a bad day at Old Trafford.

Bring a waterproof, always, regardless of the forecast. Bring layers: Manchester in July can be 25 degrees at 2pm and 13 degrees at 6.30pm, and the ground is exposed. Bring sun protection for the same day. Bring a cushion if you are in the older seating.

You may bring your own food, and the ground permits a limited alcohol allowance that is set per fixture and published in advance — historically a small number of cans or a bottle of wine per adult. Glass restrictions and bag size limits apply at the gate, and both are enforced more tightly for internationals than for county cricket.

A radio with headphones is worth more at Old Trafford than at most grounds, because the ball-by-ball commentary fills the long afternoon sessions that the ground itself does not.

How Old Trafford compares

Placed against the other English Test grounds, the honest summary:

Measure	Where Old Trafford sits
Capacity	Second or third largest, around 26,000
Sightlines	Among the best in England since 2013
Weather risk	The highest of the seven
Ticket price	Mid-range; cheaper than London, similar to Edgbaston
Transport	The best of any English Test ground — a tram to the gate
Atmosphere	Loud, but behind Edgbaston
Facilities	The best in England, helped by the hotel and conference infrastructure
Historical weight	Very high; two of the sport's most famous individual feats

The trade is clear. Old Trafford gives you the most comfortable and best-connected day out of any Test ground in the country, and asks you to accept a materially higher chance of losing part of it to rain.

Around the ground

The immediate area is Stretford: residential, unremarkable, and dominated by two enormous sporting venues. There is very little within five minutes of the cricket ground itself beyond the hotel bar and a handful of pubs on Talbot Road, all of which are full from mid-morning on an international day.

The better plan is to eat and drink in Manchester city centre before and after. The tram takes fifteen minutes each way, and the choice in the Northern Quarter, Deansgate or Spinningfields is on a completely different scale from anything in Stretford. If you are staying overnight, the city centre is also where the hotel supply is, aside from the Hilton Garden Inn built into the ground itself — whose pitch-view rooms sell out for internationals a long way ahead and are one of the more unusual things you can book in English sport.

MediaCityUK at Salford Quays is three stops away on a different tram line and is the best option if you want somewhere calmer with a view of the water.

A short chronology

Year	What happened
1857	Manchester Cricket Club moves to the Old Trafford site
1864	Lancashire County Cricket Club formed
1884	First Test match at the ground
1895	The current pavilion opens
1956	Jim Laker takes 19 wickets in the Ashes Test
1993	Warne bowls Gatting with his first ball in Ashes cricket
2005	Gates closed with 20,000 outside on the final morning
2010	Redevelopment begins; square rotation approved
2011	Lancashire win the Championship while playing at Aigburth
2013	Rebuilt ground reopens with the square turned 90 degrees
2019	Hosts a World Cup semi-final
2021	Manchester Originals begin play in The Hundred

The 2019 World Cup semi-final

The most recent addition to the ground's list, and a match that ran across two days.

India, unbeaten through the group stage and the tournament favourites, faced New Zealand. Rain stopped play on the Tuesday with New Zealand on 211 for five, and the match resumed on the reserve day — the only match of the tournament to need one. New Zealand finished on 239 for eight.

India were 5 for three inside four overs, then 24 for four. Ravindra Jadeja and MS Dhoni put on 116 for the seventh wicket and brought India within reach before Jadeja fell for 77 and Dhoni was run out by a direct hit from the boundary, sprinting for a second that would have kept the chase alive. New Zealand won by 18 runs.

It was Dhoni's final international innings, and the image of him walking off at Old Trafford is the one that closes his career.

Reading an Old Trafford Test

Watch the first session. As at every English ground, but at Old Trafford the modern square offers less lateral movement than its reputation suggests, so a side that survives the first hour is genuinely established.

Watch for the switch of ends. The rotated square means the two ends have different sightlines and different wind exposure. Bowlers who look ordinary from one end frequently look dangerous from the other, and captains at Old Trafford change ends more often than at Lord's or the Oval.

Expect the spinner to matter late. Turn arrives on days three to five. A side with a frontline spinner has a real advantage in the second half of an Old Trafford Test, which is not true at Headingley or Trent Bridge.

Watch the sky, and the covers. The drainage is the best in the country, so a shower that stops play does not end the day. If the covers come on and the rain is light, stay in your seat — twenty minutes is the usual cost, not two hours.

Five things visitors get wrong

1. Going to the football ground. Emirates Old Trafford, M16 0PX, Talbot Road. Check the postcode before you leave.
2. Leaving via Old Trafford tram stop. Walk the extra six minutes to Trafford Bar and get on a tram that is not already full.
3. Buying a five-day package. In Manchester, buy days. The refund arrangement on days four and five exists for a reason.
4. Assuming it will turn. The modern square is truer than the ground's 1956 reputation. Turn comes late, not early.
5. Driving. Permit zones, no parking, and a tram that goes directly to the gate.

Bringing children

Old Trafford is the easiest English Test ground to bring children to, for one reason above all others: the tram goes to the gate. No shuttle bus, no forty-minute walk, no residential parking hunt.

Beyond that, the 2013 rebuild left the ground with the best facilities on the circuit — level concourses, modern seating, indoor space to retreat into when it rains, and a hotel on site if the day goes badly wrong.

The best fixtures are Manchester Originals Hundred double-headers in August, which are priced and organised for families and give two matches on one ticket, and County Championship days in April and September, which cost very little and let a child wander an almost empty ground.

For a Test, take days one to three rather than a Saturday, book away from the Party Stand, and bring a waterproof regardless of the forecast.

Accessibility, in detail

The redevelopment left Old Trafford close to fully step-free, and it is the strongest of the seven Test grounds on this measure. Lift access serves the upper tiers of the modern stands, wheelchair positions with companion seating are distributed around the bowl rather than grouped at one end, and level entry is available from most gates.

Accessible parking is on site and must be booked ahead. Lancashire operate a separate accessibility booking route rather than selling those positions through the general sale, and provide audio-descriptive commentary for internationals. Assistance dogs are admitted.

The Grade II listed 1895 pavilion is the exception, as every Victorian pavilion on the circuit is, and the club is straightforward about that in its own guidance.

• 26000Capacity
• 1857Year cricket arrived on the site
• 902013Square rotation
• 19Laker's wickets in the 1956 Test

Capacity is the figure for a major international once temporary seating is installed.

1. 1The square turned 90 degreesFrom east-west to north-south, which removed the low-sun sightscreen problem.
2. 2The site freed upThe long axis became available for the pavilion, media centre and hotel.
3. 3The ground became a bowlStands could finally wrap the playing area instead of sitting at the ends.
4. 4The drainage was replacedShowers now cost twenty minutes rather than a session.
5. 5The square plays truerBetter carry, less lateral movement, turn arriving on days four and five.

The redevelopment was driven by the risk of losing Test status, not by aesthetics.

Is it worth it?

Old Trafford is the most comfortable of the English Test grounds and, on a good day, one of the loudest. The rebuild worked: the sightlines are the best in the country outside the Oval, the drainage saves cricket that used to be lost, and the ground finally feels like a single designed thing rather than an accumulation of stands.

What it trades away is age. There is very little left of the Victorian ground beyond the pavilion, and if you come looking for the atmosphere of a place that has been there since 1857 you will mostly find 2013. That is a reasonable price for a ground that was in real danger of losing Test cricket altogether, and the record book — Laker, Warne, the 2005 final morning — did not go anywhere.

A note on the name

The ground has been the Emirates Old Trafford since 2013, when Lancashire sold naming rights as part of financing the redevelopment. The sponsor prefix is used in official communications and on tickets; almost nobody says it out loud.

For searching and for directions, "Old Trafford cricket ground" is the phrase that reliably distinguishes it from the football stadium, and it is worth using both words when talking to a taxi driver in Manchester.

What the ground does out of season

Old Trafford has more year-round activity than any other English cricket ground, because the redevelopment deliberately built for it. The Point is a full conference and events venue, the Hilton Garden Inn operates as a hotel every day of the year, and the indoor centre runs coaching through the winter.

The practical result is that the ground is open, staffed and warm for most of the year, and tours run outside the season. It also means the surrounding infrastructure — hotel, parking, catering — is more developed than at grounds that shut down in October.