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  • Is it necessary that an International cricket ground should has the boundary line in circle shape?Is it allowed by ICC to make it a square or ellipse or any other?
  • What is the minimum and maximum area allowed for an international cricket ground?
  • What is the maximum number of international cricket grounds that a country allowed to have?
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Cricket is governed by two things, the Laws of Cricket and the Playing Conditions. The former are strict and do not change very often whereas the Playing Conditions allow different competitions to make adjustments to suit their needs while still conforming to the Laws.

In the case of international cricket, the International Cricket Council (ICC) maintains a set of playing conditions separately for Test Matches, ODIs and T20Is. These cover things like the uses of replays to assist Umpires DRS as well as heap of other aspects that vary between the formats.

The Laws don't appear to state any restrictions on the size of the boundaries, but there are details in the ICC's playing conditions. You can find these for the different formats here. As an example, here are the details for Test Cricket:

The playing area shall be a minimum of 150 yards (137.16 metres) from boundary to boundary square of the pitch, with the shorter of the two square boundaries being a minimum 65 yards (59.43 metres). The straight boundary at both ends of the pitch shall be a minimum of 70 yards (64.00 metres). Distances shall be measured from the centre of the pitch to be used.

In all cases the aim shall be to provide the largest playing area, subject to no boundary exceeding 90 yards (82.29 meters) from the centre of the pitch to be used.

Any ground which has been approved to host international cricket prior to 1st October 2007 or which is currently under construction as of this date which is unable to conform to these new minimum dimensions shall be exempt. In such cases the regulations in force immediately prior to the adoption of these regulations shall apply

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  • This is strange, because the straight boundary of the MCG is > 83m, as far as I recall.
    – xylon97
    Commented May 21, 2013 at 16:33
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    No, I was wrong. "The MCG arena now has a total of approximately 20,000 square metres in area and measures 173.6 long x 148.3 metres wide, from fence to fence. The boundary line is located five metres inside the fence."
    – xylon97
    Commented May 21, 2013 at 16:40

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