Overview
St George's Park, Port Elizabeth is South Africa's oldest international cricket ground and one of the Eastern Cape's most enduring sporting venues. Across 121 matches between 2002 and 2025, it has staged Test cricket, ODIs, T20 internationals, CSA domestic competitions, the Ram Slam T20 Challenge, and more recently the SA20 franchise tournament. The ground is best known for producing seam-friendly conditions in the early overs of a Test and for consistently rewarding sides who bat first, with a first-innings average of 189 runs comfortably outpacing the second-innings average of 159.
The range of formats hosted here is wider than many South African grounds. Seven IPL matches were also played at the venue, reflecting its use as a neutral or rotational host during extraordinary scheduling periods. That breadth gives the dataset genuine variety when assessing how conditions shift across formats.
Pitch and conditions
The 30-run difference between first and second innings averages is one of the more consistent signals from this ground. Captains have read it clearly: toss winners elected to field only 40% of the time across the full match record, meaning the majority have preferred to post a score and defend it. The 50% chase success rate shows those defending sides have not had everything their own way, but the instinct to bat first is well grounded.
In T20 formats, the powerplay has historically been restrained. An average of 35 runs at the cost of 1.39 wickets across the opening six overs points to a surface where movement or carry can disrupt openers who come out swinging. The middle overs absorb most of the scoring, averaging 108 runs, which places a premium on batters who can rotate the strike and build through the 7–15 over period before launching late.
Death-overs scoring averages just 33 runs, which is low relative to the typical modern T20 template. Bowlers at St George's tend to find enough from the surface to keep boundary-hitting in check at the close, making accurate, attacking death bowling a significant asset for sides playing here. The lowest completed team total of 52 serves as a reminder that conditions can be genuinely hostile when they turn.
Historical records
The batting records at St George's Park are dominated by Test centuries, and none more so than AB de Villiers against Australia. His 154 off 172 balls in March 2018 is the highest individual score on this ground, and his 145 off 271 balls in February 2014, scored in the same fixture context, gives him the top two positions on the all-time list here. Temba Bavuma (144 off 225 balls, December 2024) and JP Duminy (141 off 249 balls, February 2014) complete a set of top scores that reflect just how reliably South Africa's top order has performed on home soil.
The bowling records carry equal weight. Kagiso Rabada's match haul of 11 wickets for 150 runs from 43 overs against Australia in March 2018 is the standout, in the same match where de Villiers made his 154. Keshav Maharaj's 9 for 97 against Bangladesh in April 2022 and Taijul Islam's 9 for 202 in the same Test show that slow bowling can be just as destructive here as pace. Dale Steyn's 8 for 65 from under 29 overs against New Zealand in January 2013 remains the most economical of the top figures.
Who plays here
South Africa's national side has the largest footprint at this ground with 38 matches and a 64% win rate, confirming its status as a comfortable home venue for the Proteas. The Warriors, the Eastern Cape's domestic franchise, have played 27 matches here though their 38% win rate suggests they have found their own home conditions challenging across the formats. The Sunrisers Eastern Cape, the SA20 side rooted in Port Elizabeth, have built a stronger record with 12 wins from 19 matches at a 63% win rate. The Titans are the standout visiting side, winning 11 of their 13 matches here across all competitions for an 85% win rate, a figure that stands well above any other team in the dataset.