| Ground Name: | Officers Club Services Ground |
| Country: | England |
| Location: | Aldershot, Hampshire |
| Establishment: | 1861 |
| Coord: | 51.2603°N -0.7713°W |
| International: | true |
| Onlywt20idate: | 27 June |
| Onlywt20iyear: | 2011 |
| Onlywt20ihome: | India |
| Onlywt20iaway: | New Zealand |
| Year1: | 1905 - 1948 |
| Club1: | Hampshire |
| Year2: | 1906 - present |
| Club2: | Army |
| Date: | 5 September |
| Year: | 2020 |
| Source: | https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Grounds/11/275.html Ground profile |
The Officers Club Services Ground is a cricket ground in Fleet Road, Aldershot, Hampshire, England. The ground was used as a host venue for first-class cricket by Hampshire and various services teams from 1905 to 1964, hosting nine matches. A Women's Twenty20 International was later played there in 2011.
Aldershot had been a small village until 1853, but was transformed following the purchase of 25,000 acres of land by the War Office for military training.[1] Over the following two decades Aldershot was transformed into a garrison town, by 1874 a number of cricket grounds, including the Officers Club Services Ground, had been constructed for use by the various regiments garrisoned there.[1]
The first recorded match to have been played there was in 1861 between the Knickerbockers and I Zingari. Over the coming decade the ground was used by the Aldershot Division in matches primarily against I Zingari and the Marylebone Cricket Club, though not exclusively as some matches were against other parts of the armed forces.[2] A pavilion was built in 1887.[1] Hampshire first played first-class cricket there in the 1905 County Championship against Surrey,[3] with Hampshire losing this match by 7 wickets.[4] Hampshire used the ground twice more as a venue before World War I, playing Surrey in 1906 and Somerset in 1910. This season also saw its first-class use by an armed services team, when a combined Army and Navy team played a combined Oxford and Cambridge Universities team, which marked the final first-class match played there before World War I.[3] First-class cricket did not return immediately after the war, the first match of note came in May 1932 when the Army played the touring Indians in a two-day non-first-class match, which was abandoned without a ball bowled.[2] [5] Later that year in June, first-class cricket returned to the ground when the Army played the touring South Americans, which the Army won by 5 wickets.[6]
The following season, the Army played another first-class match against the touring West Indians, which ended in a draw. Of note was the Army's opening partnership of 286 in their first-innings between Reginald Hudson and Cyril Hamilton.[7] This was the final first-class match held there before World War II,[3] despite visits from the touring Australians in 1934 and 1938, and from the West Indians in 1939, none of which were rated first-class.[2] A new pavilion was constructed to replace the original in 1936 and was opened by General Sir John Francis Gathorne-Hardy.[1] [8]
Minor matches between various armed services teams and the Oxford University Authentics were played during the war. Following the end of the war, Hampshire returned to playing first-class cricket at the ground,[3] playing two matches in 1948 against Cambridge University, which was drawn,[9] and the Combined Services, which Hampshire won by an innings and 60 runs.[10] These matches were the last first-class matches Hampshire would play there. First-class cricket did not return until 1964, when the final first-class held there was played between the Combined Services and Oxford University.[3] Both the Army and the Combined Services continued to play at the ground after this, doing so to this day.[2] More recently, a Women's Twenty20 International was played there in 2011 between India Women and New Zealand Women,[11] which India Women won by 3 wickets.[12]