Venues where watching cricket could be a health hazard

"I love it!" That was Virender Sehwag's pithy response to a question about the short boundaries in New Zealand moments after he had pillaged 125 runs off 74 balls in Hamilton. Sehwag hit half-a-dozen sixes in that innings, taking the tally at Seddon Park to 10. There were plenty of sixes at the other ODI venues too - six in Napier, two in the abandoned game in Wellington, 31 in Christchurch, and 11 in Auckland. The two Twenty20 internationals in Christchurch and Wellington had 24 and 10 respectively. The glut of sixes prompted us to do some digging and produce the list of venues where the most (and least) sixes have been hit per 300 balls in ODIs and Tests since the 1996 World Cup.

Seddon Park isn't among the top 20 venues with the highest ratio of sixes per 300 balls in ODIs; four other New Zealand venues are. Christchurch's AMI stadium, which is also a rugby ground, has had 204 sixes in the last 22 matches played there and its ratio of 5.10 sixes per 300 balls is the highest for any international venue. The 31 sixes in the New Zealand-India ODI at the venue on March 8 was a world record, as was India's individual tally of 18 sixes in the match. The ground's average number of sixes has been higher in recent times - there have been 98 in the last 10 matches.

Eden Park in Auckland has the second-highest ratio - 4.22 sixes per 300 balls - Napier's McLean Park is 10th with 3.26, and the Westpac Stadium in Wellington just about makes it to 20th place with 2.91. India and New Zealand played at all these venues during the recent ODI series and the aggregate of 60 sixes is the second highest for a bilateral contest. The highest is 61, but that was in a seven-match series between India and Australia in 2007-08. This one had only five games, and four of them were curtailed by rain.

Seven African venues occupy places between Nos. 2 and 10 - five in South Africa and two in Kenya. Australia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are the only major ODI countries without grounds in the table below. For the record, the most sixes overall - 905 - have been hit in Sharjah, which has hosted a record 198 ODIs.

Highest ratio of sixes per 300 balls at a ground in ODIs since 1996 World Cup (minimum 10 matches)

Ground	Mat	Runs	Balls	R/6B	4s	6s	6s/300B
AMI Stadium, Christchurch	22	9919	11977	4.96	920	204	5.10
Eden Park, Auckland	29	10748	14782	4.36	984	208	4.22
SuperSport Park, Centurion	22	8887	11606	4.59	828	141	3.64
Mombasa Sports Club Ground	10	4292	5611	4.58	431	68	3.63
Gymkhana Club Ground, Nairobi	57	21987	30159	4.37	2188	356	3.54
Willowmoore Park, Benoni	12	4307	5896	4.38	416	68	3.45
Senwes Park, Potchefstroom	11	4254	5438	4.69	412	62	3.42
Newlands, Cape Town	25	9658	13491	4.29	834	153	3.40
New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg	22	9312	11718	4.76	886	132	3.37
McLean Park, Napier	22	9095	11848	4.60	760	129	3.26
Beausejour Stadium, Gros Islet, St Lucia	16	6847	8884	4.62	627	97	3.27
County Ground, Bristol	10	4257	5615	4.54	430	61	3.25
National Stadium, Karachi	29	14011	16321	5.15	1312	176	3.23
National Cricket Stadium, St George's, Grenada	16	6409	8458	4.54	527	90	3.19
Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados	19	7750	10260	4.53	716	103	3.01
Sabina Park, Kingston, Jamaica	18	6768	9700	4.18	596	97	3.00
M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore	11	4807	5780	4.98	479	57	2.95
Queens Sports Club, Bulawayo	37	14935	19576	4.57	1356	191	2.92
De Beers Diamond Oval, Kimberley	10	3881	5081	4.58	379	50	2.95
Westpac Stadium, Wellington	17	6164	8434	4.38	555	82	2.91

Dambulla, Sri Lanka's newest international venue, has hosted 22 ODIs - four fewer than Christchurch - but batsmen have managed only 61 sixes there. Its average number of sixes per 300 balls - 1.28 - is the lowest for any venue. Two other Colombo venues also appear in the table for lowest average number of sixes - the Premadasa Stadium (1.58) and the SSC (2.10).

While Sri Lankan venues have fewer sixes because their pitches are predominantly slow and keep low, the grounds in Australia are hard to clear because they are large and their pitches usually assist fast bowling. All of the six major Australian venues - the MCG, the Gabba, the SCG, Hobart, Adelaide and the WACA - as well as the Docklands Stadium in Melbourne - appear in list of top 20 venues with the lowest average number of sixes.

Even in Tests, New Zealand's grounds feature prominently among the venues with the highest frequency of sixes since 1996. Eden Park is at No. 1 with 100 sixes in nine Tests and an average of 1.58 per 300 balls. The AMI Stadium, the No. 1 venue for sixes in ODIs, is two spots lower in Tests with an average of 1.41 sixes per 300 balls. Seddon Park, the venue for the first Test between New Zealand and India, is ninth, while Basin Reserve in Wellington, the venue for the third Test, is also on the list.

The record for most sixes in a Test is 27 during the Pakistan-India Test in 2005-06 in Faisalabad, the second venue in the table below. The second-highest number of sixes in a Test is 23, at the AMI Stadium when Nathan Astle hit the fastest double-century against England in 2002.

Trent Bridge in Nottingham and Lord's, No. 7 and No. 11 respectively on the list of ODI venues with the lowest average number of sixes, are also on the Test list. Trent Bridge is at No. 1 with an average of 0.40 sixes per 300 balls, while Lord's is at 3 with 0.45.