Greenfield International Stadium pitch report and records: what Thiruvananthapuram actually does now

India play West Indies in the first of three ODIs at the Greenfield International Stadium on 27 September, and the ground they are walking into is not the one its record books describe. For its first five years as an international venue, Thiruvananthapuram was a place where batting was hard work. Since January 2023 it has produced 390 for 5, 235 for 4 and 271 for 5. Across the four full-length men’s T20 internationals played here, the average first-innings total is 195.5, and only one ground in India has a higher figure.

Greenfield International Stadium at a glance

The stadium sits at Kariavattom, on the northern edge of Thiruvananthapuram, opposite the University of Kerala campus that owns the land. It was India’s first stadium built on a design, build, operate and transfer model, and it is officially named The Sports Hub, Trivandrum.

Opened	26 January 2015
Capacity	50,000
Location	Kariavattom, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
Owner	University of Kerala
Operator	Kariavattom Sports Facilities Limited
Cost	₹390 crore, on 36 leased acres
Home team	Kerala, in the Ranji Trophy
Internationals	2 men’s ODIs, 5 men’s T20Is, 3 women’s T20Is

It is a genuine multi-sport ground rather than a cricket stadium that occasionally hosts football. The final of the 2015 SAFF Championship was played here on 3 January 2016, India beating Afghanistan 2-1 in extra time in front of 40,500 people, which remains the best guide anyone has to what the place holds when it is full. The venue is also the centralised home of the Kerala Cricket League. Kerala Blasters, despite the state connection, play their Indian Super League football at Kochi rather than here.

Greenfield Stadium pitch report: a ground that changed its mind

The honest way to read this surface is to split its history in two, because the two halves disagree completely.

The first three men’s internationals here produced a rain-shortened 67 for 5, West Indies bowled out for 104, and South Africa held to 106 for 8. That is the ground most pitch reports still describe, and it is where the line about Thiruvananthapuram not being a batting venue comes from. Then came 15 January 2023, when India made 390 for 5 against Sri Lanka. Since then the ground has staged a 235 and a 271 in T20 internationals, and a women’s T20I total of 221 for 2.

Set against the rest of the country, the recent figure is striking. Fifteen Indian grounds have staged at least four full-length men’s T20 internationals. Ranked by average first-innings score, Thiruvananthapuram is second on that list.

Ground	Matches	Avg 1st inn
Narendra Modi, Ahmedabad	13	198.8
Greenfield, Thiruvananthapuram	4	195.5
Wankhede, Mumbai	16	189.9
MA Chidambaram, Chennai	8	188.8
Saurashtra CA, Rajkot	6	186.3
PCA IS Bindra, Mohali	6	182.7
Barsapara, Guwahati	4	182.5
Arun Jaitley, Delhi	9	174.7

Four matches is a small sample and it should be read as one. Hyderabad and Indore both average higher than Thiruvananthapuram on three matches each, which is why the table starts at four. What the number does say is that nothing in the recent evidence supports treating this as a bowling ground, and that the 106 for 8 South Africa managed in 2022 now looks like the outlier rather than the rule.

The result split is less dramatic than the scoring. Across the five men’s T20Is, the side batting first has won three and the chase has won two. Four of the five captains who won the toss chose to field, and only two of those four went on to win. In the two ODIs, one result went each way. There is no strong case here for bowling first, which is worth saying because the toss behaviour suggests captains believe otherwise.

Every men’s T20I played at Thiruvananthapuram

Date	Match	Scores	Result
7 Nov 2017	India v New Zealand	67/5 and 61/6	India by 6 runs
8 Dec 2019	India v West Indies	170/7 and 173/2	West Indies by 8 wkts
28 Sep 2022	South Africa v India	106/8 and 110/2	India by 8 wkts
26 Nov 2023	India v Australia	235/4 and 191/9	India by 44 runs
31 Jan 2026	India v New Zealand	271/5 and 225	India by 46 runs

That 2017 game was the ground’s first international, and it made Thiruvananthapuram the 50th venue in India to stage one. It also needs a footnote that most record lists leave off. Rain cut it to eight overs a side, so New Zealand’s 61 for 6 is the ground’s lowest T20I total only in the sense that it was made in a third of an innings. The lowest score in a full twenty-over T20I here is South Africa’s 106 for 8.

The most recent match is the one that reset everything. India hit 23 sixes in making 271 for 5 on 31 January 2026, and New Zealand’s 225 in reply took the match aggregate to 496 runs, the second-highest in any full-length men’s T20I played in India. Only the 499 at the Wankhede between India and England on 5 March 2026 beats it.

Greenfield International Stadium T20I records

Record	Holder	Detail
Highest total	India	271/5 v New Zealand, 2026
Lowest total	South Africa	106/8 v India, 2022
Highest score	Ishan Kishan	103 off 43, 2026
Best bowling	Arshdeep Singh	5/51, 2026
Most runs	Ishan Kishan	155
Most wickets	Arshdeep Singh	9

Ishan Kishan’s 103 from 43 balls is the only T20 international century scored at the ground. Arshdeep Singh holds both bowling records, and his five for 51 is the only five-wicket haul here in any international format. Both came in the same match in January 2026, which is a reasonable summary of how much that game rearranged the venue’s record book.

The two ODIs, and a record that has quietly been beaten

Thiruvananthapuram has held only two men’s one-day internationals and they sit at opposite ends of the scale.

On 1 November 2018, West Indies were put in and bowled out for 104 in 32 overs. Ravindra Jadeja took 4 for 34 and Jasprit Bumrah 2 for 11, and India knocked the runs off in under 15 overs for the loss of a single wicket. On 15 January 2023, India made 390 for 5 against Sri Lanka, with Virat Kohli 166 not out from 110 balls and Shubman Gill 116 from 97. Sri Lanka were 73 for 9 when the innings closed, and India won by 317 runs.

That margin is often still described as the biggest in one-day international history. It is not, and it has not been for a year. England beat South Africa by 342 runs at Southampton on 7 September 2025. India’s 317 remains the largest victory by runs in any men’s ODI played in India, and the second largest anywhere, which is a considerable record in its own right and does not need the inflated version.

Kohli’s 166 not out is the highest individual score made at the ground in any format. Mohammed Siraj’s 4 for 32 in the same match is the best ODI analysis here, two runs better than Jadeja’s 4 for 34 from the 2018 game. For the wider context on where those innings sit, our guide to the biggest numbers in ODI cricket has the all-time lists.

The women’s matches most venue guides leave out

In December 2025, Thiruvananthapuram staged the last three matches of a five-match women’s T20 international series between India and Sri Lanka. India had already won the series by the time it reached Kerala, and they won all three here as well. Most venue profiles skip these matches entirely, which is how a ground that has held only five men’s T20Is comes to be described on its T20 record alone.

Date	Scores	Result
26 Dec 2025	Sri Lanka 112/7, India 115/2	India by 8 wkts
28 Dec 2025	India 221/2, Sri Lanka 191/6	India by 30 runs
30 Dec 2025	India 175/7, Sri Lanka 160/7	India by 15 runs

India’s 221 for 2 on 28 December is the highest women’s total at the ground, and it ranks fourth among all T20 international totals made here, men’s included. Smriti Mandhana’s 80 from 48 balls is the highest women’s score at the venue, and Shafali Verma made 163 runs across the three matches. Renuka Singh’s 4 for 21 on 26 December is the best women’s analysis. The 412 runs scored in the 28 December match is more than three of the five men’s T20Is here have produced.

What to expect on 27 September

India and West Indies meet in the first ODI on Sunday 27 September, a day-night game starting at 2pm IST, and it is the first 50-over meeting between the sides since August 2023. It is also only the third men’s ODI this ground has staged, which means the 50-over sample here remains too thin to forecast from with any confidence.

What the evidence supports is modest and worth stating plainly. The surface has not produced a low score in any format since 2022. The captains have tended to bowl first and the results have not rewarded them. And the two previous ODIs here were both thoroughly one-sided, which is the one genuine pattern in a sample of two. Our full India v West Indies ODI series preview covers the squads and the head-to-head record across all three venues.

For comparable profiles of the other grounds on this tour and elsewhere, see our pitch reports for Barsapara in Guwahati, the newly opened Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Stadium at Mullanpur, and the Wankhede Stadium, which holds the aggregate record Thiruvananthapuram came four runs short of.

Featured photo: MANJUNATH KIRAN / AFP

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