A first as county cricket goes to Rugby

By Paul Bolton, County News Correspondent

Warwickshire will be taking cricket to an outground for the first time in eight years next summer when they stage an inaugural match in Rugby.

The Friends Life t20 match against Glamorgan will be played at Rugby School’s picturesque ground next to the playing fields where William Webb Ellis first picked up and ran with a football and gave birth to the sport of rugby.

Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire have all staged second team cricket at the ground in recent years but Warwickshire are the first to stage a senior match at the school.

It will be the first time since 2005, when Warwickshire were beaten by Scotland in a one-day match at Stratford, that the county will have played a first team game away from Edgbaston. Hampshire’s two-day capitulation in that County Championship fixture seven years ago cost Warwickshire around £10,000 in lost revenue and put them off outground cricket.

But as Edgbaston has been chosen as one of the three venues for next summer’s ICC Champions Trophy, Warwickshire have the chance to take cricket to the east of the county and Rugby School were keen to host a fixture.

“In recent years we have taken a strong view that we wanted to play more cricket at Edgbaston not less cricket, that has been our philosophy hitherto,” said Warwickshire chief executive Colin Povey.

“We have got a particularly busy period next year and that has given us an opportunity to go somewhere else. It’s in a Twenty20 format which is probably easier to digest at an outground than Championship cricket.

“Rugby School have been terrific for us as a second team venue in recent times. It will be a different  type of offering to being in a big stadium like Edgbaston. It’s over on the other side of the county, and we have a good spectator base around Coventry, It’s a fantastic, beautiful setting and we will see how it goes and review it from there.”


Date: 30/11/2012 10:28:34 by Paul Bolton
In: Warwickshire | Today |