Cricket Database: One Name for Each Ground, After Venue Names Were Standardised on 5,145 Older Matches
Published: November 5, 2026
Cricsheet has standardized venue names across its whole archive. The same ground used to appear under several spellings, so a query for Eden Gardens or the Gabba missed part of the record. On 4 Nov the cricket database picked up the new names, on 5,145 older matches.
The count of distinct venue names went from 609 to 382. Every major ground now has one name across all formats. Eden Gardens is "Eden Gardens, Kolkata" on all 152 matches. "Kennington Oval" and "The Oval" are now one ground. The three spellings of the Gabba are now "Brisbane Cricket Ground". The same holds for Lord's, the MCG, the SCG, Wankhede, Chepauk, Dubai, Sharjah and the other big grounds.
Grounds that share a name are now told apart by the city. "County Ground" is Bristol or Northampton, and "National Stadium" is Karachi or Hamilton. In the older names these sat together under one label.
A few grounds still appear under two names, and each split follows a real rename on a date. Older matches keep the name the ground had at the time. Chinnaswamy is Bangalore up to 2014 and Bengaluru after. Feroz Shah Kotla became Arun Jaitley Stadium in 2019. Port Elizabeth became Gqeberha, and Chittagong became Chattogram. If you want one ground across its whole history, include both names in your filter.
Nothing else in the match details changed. The names are cricsheet's, as published, and the database takes them as they come. The validation page shows the change, with the old and the new name for each match.
The validation page, with every check and the list of changed matches: validation.tigzig.com
The cricket database, live SQL and the full download: tigzig.com/apis/database
All downloads: tigzig.com/downloads
Earlier posts that save time on the data
For Analysts Using the Tigzig Cricket Database: 14 Things That Trip People Up: tigzig.com/post/cricket-database-14-things-that-trip-people-up-sep2026
Twelve More Stats Functions on the Cricket SQL Endpoints, and the Two Limits That Are Easy to Hit: tigzig.com/post/cricket-sql-stats-functions-and-limits-sep2026
Getting Errors Running SQL Against the Tigzig Cricket Database?: tigzig.com/post/db-mcp-url-encoding-errors-aug2026
Tigzig APIs Tell You What Went Wrong: tigzig.com/post/tigzig-api-error-hints-read-the-body-sep2026
Credit and compliance
Data source is Cricsheet (cricsheet.org), licensed ODC-BY 1.0. TigZig is not affiliated with or endorsed by Cricsheet.
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